So all of you who Believe MG is rampant and not a Problem ................. Maybe thats why it is Rampant . you treat your birds figure the birds that live are ok Get eggs cull those Birds but why Hatch eggs that have MG that No med will Kill . the MG resides in the Fluids . OH yeah egg yolk is not a fluid right ?
Back when i started wth chickens 35 some Yrs ago These Diseases where not hardly even heard of . I am sorry but just because you treat your birds and keep the babies is like saying a person that takes medication for Aids is safe to have sex with . Or that you can use a condom and not get pregnant or HIV . Do you all realize how this kinda action will spread this issue farther and farther , OK so your birds built up and immunity but what about the show birds i had from NY they where not immune because they where well taken care of ? they are the first to go , Thanks all i am reading but i do not think medication is a happy life for a Bird that is sick nor do i think letting them suffer threw the Disease is a way to go sure culling off the ones that show signs is a great way right ? so Mg is a Slow Disease sometimes you see nothing but the birds are still sick. sometimes you see it and kill out those birds. and slowly kill off birds showing disease in the mean time how many are you saving that have the disease spreading to Wild birds and animals. State vet asked me why did you kill off all your birds I showed him my parrot that means more then the chickens who are sick after treating the chickens your not supposed to eat the eggs , NOW Have any of you asked Why ? Because they have Mg , Out of the box and still reading thanks for posting i am learning as well but also have to state my Opinions
Your statement that "These Diseases where not hardly even heard of" - is more of an indication of lack of knowledge 35 years ago than indication the disease wasn't around. Back then, hundreds of thousands of people were not connecting and sharing information via the internet. There was no internet and no social media sites for people to quickly exchange information. I imagine that if MG were the most pressing illness 35+ years ago, the government would have likely had a big push to get information to the general public about MG and started demanding wide scale testing and monitoring. Obviously this didn't happen. The lack of MG being heard of back then may be more a sign of ignorance of the disease on the part of chicken keepers, not evidence that the disease wasn't around.
In addition, a chicken can have one sneeze that is never heard by a human or never have any symptoms at all and still be a carrier. So unless everyone that kept birds since the beginning of the 20th century (when the symptoms were noted in turkeys) had their birds tested, consistently and repeatedly, there is no way to know exactly how many birds carried MG.
And then you will need to factor in that there were wild birds, who if they weren't originally carriers, could have become carriers via infected poultry flocks and that they have also been spreading MG for the last 100+ yrs since MG symptoms were first seen.
Let's not forget that medical knowledge and testing has continued to increase and improve since the mid 20th century. I highly doubt that there was a plethora of laboratories testing for MG in poultry flocks "back then". I'm sure commercial flock keepers were testing, but not farmers, families, or poultry fanciers. When there is increase in the prevalence of a disease, you have to look at whether or not there was an improvement in detection ability as well as an increase in testing, and an increase in recognition of symptoms to prompt testing and diagnosis. You can't just jump to the conclusion that a disease is more prevalent now simply because it is detected more often.
We also have many more flocks, both commercial and now backyard flocks, than were around in the 20th century (corresponding with an increase in the human population). When so many more people are keeping chickens these days, there are more eyes on the birds to see if there is a problem. Backyard chicken keepers are more likely to notice a problem than the farmer (today's farmer or "back then" who lets his chickens run free and if some die, oh well, he doesn't do a necropsy or send specimens to the lab to see what the chicken died of. And if one of them looks sick, the farmer uses an axe and gets rid of it not bothering to see why the chicken was looking puny, sneezing, and not eating.
And then with the advent of the internet to share information - of course it seems like there is so much more MG going around than there was 35 years ago.
Personally, to me your opinion seems to come from someone who is hurt and angry about what happened to their birds and looking to find blame as a way to deal with the grief that I imagine you must feel. Having to make a decision to euthanize an animal that you care about is one of the kindest decisions you can make. And one of the most difficult. I'm sorry for your loss but I don't feel that your opinion has much factual basis.
