I didn't properly quarantine...what can I do?

[Judy]

For the OP, let's hope you got lucky, too. I see no point in quarantine at this stage. If you're not seeing runny noses, watery eyes, sneezing, etc., all may be well. I'm no experienced chicken keeper who's had them for many years as some of the posters in this thread are, but I doubt you'd have brought a disease home if you'd taken a few of mine, as I've never seen symptoms. Not saying you shouldn't have quarantined -- just that maybe you got away with it. An isolated death or two is going to happen with chickens; they are excellent at hiding illness, and could well have died of a reproductive system disease, heart attack, liver failure, etc. which are not contagious. I'd wait and see -- and of course handle it differently in the future.

If I were going to bring outside mature birds in, I'd not only isolate them downwind and some distance away, after a month of this I'd choose a "sacrifice" chicken or two and put that one in with the isolated one, then wait a while again. Kind of double insurance, as carriers may not show symptoms but a new bird might still catch something. The good news is, this is unnecessary if you buy chicks or eggs from a hatchery or reputable breeder.

Here's a good source on the sorts of diseases we're talking about:

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044

And best of luck to you!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
I agree with this post. Once they are exposed, they are exposed. All the panic in the world won't change that. All you can realistically do is watch them carefully for any signs of disease. The principle is called "point forward". You take the situation you are in now and deal with that. You gain nothing by beating yourself up about what you might have done. Learn from it and maybe do something different in the future, but spend your energy dealing with reality of how things are, not some wistful fantasy of how you wish they had been.

I know in your case it does not apply since you only had one chicken, but I also agree with the idea of a sacrificial chicken. If the new chickens have been exposed to other chickens in the past month or so, then the traditional quarantine is a great idea. But if the chickens come from a flock that has not been exposed to other chickens for a while, they could easily be immune to something and never show symptoms no matter how long they are quarantined, yet they can infect your chickens when they mix. I'll use Coccidiosis as an easy example.

I think the best thing you can do is to watch them closely for the next month or two and don't do anything dramatic. Worming them or treating for mites and lice would be fine, but doing anything else is medicating them when you don't know if anything is wrong. That could mask symptoms you might want to see.

Good luck in this.

 

[Mrs. K]

I always kind of wonder about the importance of quarantine with just one chicken being the original flock. If you have 40 chickens, well wiping out the flock with disease would be terrible. But one chicken is not the same thing. I am not advocating buying any chicken, and certainly not a sick chicken, but if the birds look healthy and act alert, I think it is a small chance to take to skip the quarantine if you are only risking a few birds. Of course I have only bought hens from people whose flock I had seen, and their facilities I had seen, and none of the birds were sniffling or coughing there.

Don't get me wrong, I would feel bad if I introduced some more hens, and the whole flock went down. But with my small flock, it is not a major financial mess and if there is just one hen, she will get droopy not having any chickens to hang with. chickens are a flock animal. However, for quarantine to really work the hens must be seperated a great distance, you need to wash your hands between handling them and not share food or water. And if you merely have them side by side in pens, that is not quarantine at all.

If you bring a diseased bird onto your place, it will be very difficult to not expose your flock to the bird unless you have a great deal of space. However, sometimes you do need to add birds to the flock, and sometimes you have to risk it. I once was down to two birds, going into winter. I added 6 birds and they all did fine.

MrsK

 

[Honeybadger68]

Hi everyone! First of all, thank you to all who posted and for your kind words of encouragement and suggestions. I'm happy to report that everyone is still alive and doing well. The new pullets are still in a separate run and I'm keeping things that way for another week or two, just in case. I think I got lucky, but don't ever intend to take such a chance again...nor do I think I'll buy pullets or hens again and will stick with chicks from now on (even despite the risk of possibly getting and having to re-home some Roos as a result).

Also appreciate those who suggested that the risk is much lower given I just had one hen, but as I'm sure many of you know we can get very attached to our chickens! My BO, Flo, is *such* a charming and hilarious character that I would be absolutely devastated to lose her to something i could have prevented. I realize chicken owners are all different--some of us see our chickens as expendable layers/food sources, while others see them as cherished family members who happen to give us yummy eggs, fertilizer and joyful entertainment. Flo definitely falls into the second category!

I'll post our progress as we move into integration in the next few weeks. Wish us luck!