Has anyone got Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis (Bird Keepers Lung/Flu)

[PrincessKiara]

My chickens are house chickens so I clean their cage (think: huge monstrosity with wood shavings on bottom) quite often. I haven't worn a mask to do it in the past, but I will now. Thanks for the info!

I will say that I have tile floors and don't notice a larger than before I had chickens amount of dust when sweeping. I have three silkies that aren't very tame yet and one mutt roo who is definitely my special pet.

 

[Lyranonamous]

I had hypersensitivity pneumonia in 2015. I was on oxygen for 3.5 months and house ridden. I was in a high danger status with a great possibility of dying. I was in the city then and did not have chickens at the time. I now have to take a profilactic pill for the rest of my life. So yes I agree with you, wear masked and gloves when cleaning a coop or a bird

I had hypersensitivity pneumonia in 2015. I was on oxygen for 3.5 months and house ridden. I was in a high danger status with a great possibility of dying. I was in the city then and did not have chickens at the time. I now have to take a profilactic pill for the rest of my life. So yes I agree with you, wear masked and gloves when cleaning a coop or a bird

Do you know how you got this if you didn't have chickens?

 

[forgive7]

Surgical face mask on a breezy day, for air flow to minimize what the mask don't keep out

 

[PJ Barta]

My kids have 7 chickens in a chicken tractor approx 5' * 8' only half of that bring the coop. We/I clean it weekly using pine bedding. Am I still at risk?

 

[Deb ekholm]

I have bronchitis acquired from way back in the army in the early 70s. I haven't experienced your problem but I never clean a coop or go into a building to handle birds without a mask.
There is a real thing called hen workers lung.

I actually lost my vet to it. Doctors said he couldn'tever be around birds again. Heartbreaking

 

[Deb ekholm]

I have gotten sick from cleaning my coop even with a mask. Had a bad cough after my last big cleaning. I went to buy some masks to clean my coop before they were sold out, and I didn't even come home with any. I picked up a pack of 50 and then googled how effective they were. A bandana filters (11%) double the particles that a basic dust mask (6%) does. You need expensive surgical masks to filter 33% of particles, and even that is nowhere near the 99% that a respirator filters. From now on, it's bandanas for me.

Gleet in chickens is same fungus as thrush in humans. Sorry i keep posting this but ive had nystatin resistance thrush for 5 or six months, drs cant cure it. Now i know

 

[allen wranch]

I have pooper scooped my coops every day or every other day for as long as I have had chickens, which is 18 years. I always wear a mask. If I have to catch my chickens for worming, moving or anything else that is going to stir up dust, I wear a mask.

I cannot imagine how sick I would get if I did not. Unfortunately, I don‘t use the N95 masks, but I will when they become available again. I recently started using charco filtered surgical masks. They are thicker than the common surgical masks I used to use.

Fit is important. I have a small head, and found tying a knot in each of the elastic straps allows the mask to fit snugly around my nose, mouth and chin.

Anything you can use to filter dust in the air is going to help your lungs, even if it is not optimal.

 

[Folly's place]

The respirators and N95 masks will be back, and be safe until then. The coop can get a little less pristine, add more shavings on top and call it good enough.
Spring is coming!
Mary

 

[HenKat]

I am a physician. I wholeheartedly agree with the recommendation of wearing an N95 mask when doing anything that will stir up dust in the coop. There are very severe chronic lung diseases that can be prevented. However, right now hospitals have a huge shortage of these masks needed to protect the doctors, nurses, therapists and assistants who are caring for patients with Covid-19, and they continue to put themselves at risk in order to care for their patients even without this much needed equipment.

If you do have an extra supply of clean N95 masks, even just a few, consider contacting your local hospital to see if they need donations to help keep your local community as healthy as possible. I know in other countries they have resorted to makeshift masks using paper or cloth stapled to rubber bands--barely even helpful from this airborne virus... Each mask is valuable and appreciated right now!

#FlattenTheCurve #StayHealthyStayHome

 

[Folly's place]

Yes! Coop cleaning is good, and wearing good masks is essential, but can we all put it off for now, and help on the human side of things?
This is also not the time to get some health issue that needs a hospital visit! And unhappy lungs, for any reason, won't do as well with Covid19 either.
Mary