General health

[kellychiciii]

Hello to you all! What a wonderful sight this is! I am constantly googling questions and it always brings me back to this sight I just recently started getting a few chickens from around my community and I'm keeping them seperated until I know there are no illnesses going around....can anyone tell me if there is something I can give my chickens as a treatment/preventative to make sure they don't have or get anything? Also please give me your best tips on keeping a healthy happy flock!
Thank you!

 

[dawg53]

Collecting chickens from different places in your community isnt a good idea. It's best to get them all from one place. Keep them seperated and quarantined from the different areas you got them. Quarantining for 6 weeks is best. This will give you time to inspect each bird for injuries, bumps, bruises...basically anything out of the ordinary head to tail. You'll want to visually inspect them for external parasites and worm them. Six weeks sounds like a long time and it is. However, there are respiratory diseases that will show themselves in that time frame, then you can make the decision to treat or cull the birds. Remember biosecurity. Most respiratory diseases are transmittable via the clothing and shoes you wear, practice personal hygiene when dealing with each group.

 

[Cknldy]

Some folks don't really care about this but just food for thought: when getting all of your chickens from different locals casually ask where they got their stock from. While it is okay to breed fathers to daughters and mothers to sons I personally prefer not to. And if 2 or 3 of the people u get your chickens from got them from the same person then u may end up unknowingly inbreeding which can result in genetic problems. I've had newbies buy chicks from me when choosing chicks the question of future hatching from mating of cockerals and pullets bought has come up. I explain the sister/ brother deal because mine are from 1 'daddy' over the 'moms' and really shouldn't mate. Original parentage from hatcheries are less likely to be related but a.simple casual question (most chicken folks won't mind) can save u heartache later when chicks have problems. I believe in buying local too. Hope this helps

 

[rbaker0345]

This time of year, with the wet weather we're having, I would watch for respiratory illness (you'll hear a catch in their breathing). I would keep some tetracycline powder on hand and put it in the water if you notice labored breathing.

The other thing would be coccidiosis. This is a small, single-celled parasite which causes severe G.I. bleeding, usually in young birds. You can first notice diarrhea and a general uncomfortable, hunched attitude, this will be followed by bloody stool and death. I like to feed medicated starter to prevent this. If your birds are older, you probably don't need to worry, but I would definitely worry about this with young birds.

If these birds are coming from different places, keep them in quarantine for about six weeks and wash hands between working with each group of birds.