The wolves take the sick, old and young. Only the strong survive so they help the population.
My kids slept like rocks. I was so grateful.
... you get the point!
For the first time in over a week, I was able to open Duckling's door without her waking! AAAAAND I was able to cover her up! She was obviously not ready to be taken out of the crib.
Awesome story.
So that's your final decision? Have you decided to keep raising chickens and what breed?Well, I just spent a couple hours reading more on the whole Avian Leukosis Virus thing (I have access to several very specific articles via the medical library online access). Initial hopes I had of keeping the Aloha NN girls are gone now - good evidence from a very well done study looking at exactly this issue is that if they are contact infected at 4 weeks, they have a decent chance of producing congenitally infected chicks. (And that's the whole reason I wanted to keep them and put them with Tank, to get chicks, so - not worth it.) Congenitally infected chicks are the BIG exposers in a flock, as they shed millions/billions of viral particles in their poop. Interestingly, most efficient contact exposure leading to infection is feather picking.
I realize that even with culling these pullets in the "congenital" pen and a good clean up of their area, it's unlikely for my yard to be totally ALV clean after all of this (though I do have 6 separately housed groups), especially since it's common anyway. But this cohort of pullets is a known high risk that I've decided I'm not going to take (oh, and they fly really well and like to escape their area, even more reason...).
Sooooo, I'm back to the plan to cull them all.I am not sure what the situation is with the adult CLs that were with the original hen who passed it on and died, but they are isolated from the others, are essentially pets and won't breed again - from what I've read, they are not at high risk of passing virus into the environment/to others, more that they might pass it to offspring. Here's the thing - offspring from one of those hens are in with ALL of my growout chicks right now, including the GNHs, the marans, everybody. Unlikely, but if one of them turns up with it, this is going to get a lot uglier...
I need to get my chicken numbers down anyway - I think things happen for a reason sometimes, and at a minimum, it's always easier to try to find a bright side. So I will cull this group of pullets, and I will keep those chicks growing out away from any of the adult Naked Necks until they get to an age to "declare" themselves (they usually begin getting tumors at ~14-16 weeks) - If everyone makes it past POL safely, I think that's the best I can expect for my backyard flock. If not, my number of chickens is going to go down a lot faster than I expected. The good thing is that ALV is relatively straightforward to get out of the environment with cleaning, etc. Doesn't survive long outside of the chickens...
Still, this sucks...
- Ant Farm
good for you
I am not sure what the situation is with the adult CLs that were with the original hen who passed it on and died, but they are isolated from the others, are essentially pets and won't breed again - from what I've read, they are not at high risk of passing virus into the environment/to others, more that they might pass it to offspring. Here's the thing - offspring from one of those hens are in with ALL of my growout chicks right now, including the GNHs, the marans, everybody. Unlikely, but if one of them turns up with it, this is going to get a lot uglier...
