Are they using them (people who keep fighting chickens) as a scapegoat? Wouldn't it be true that the process of raising and training fighting chickens involves much more movement and activity than most backyard pet owners would ever be involved in? Think about it. How often would a fighting chicken owner leave his property with a bird or 2? My guess (and yes it is a guess, but an educated and conservative one) is at least once a week, to a match where multiple birds are exposed to each others blood and body fluids in a major way, with birds showing up from up to a 100 miles away, maybe more. And training the chickens. Can't rehome roosters in my area because they will be used as training fodder for the up and coming fighting roosters (more activity and movement, exposure to blood and body fluids). You know you are passing a rooster farm when you see multiple little triangular structures with a rooster tethered to it. These chickens are bred to fight to the death and cannot be left loose to interact with each other. But there is still crowding because the tethers are at most 3 or 4 feet long, and they cram a multitude of the structures onto a small amount of land. Rows and rows of them. Chickens scratch and throw up dirt that can reach the other birds. Those people who raise these birds for money and don't care what happens to them contribute to the problem in the same way that those who grow marijuana and cook crank contribute to the drug problem. As long as there is a demand there will be a supply, as there are plenty of unscrupulous people around who will do anything for money. Meanwhile, where have my birds been? At home, ever since I got them, they have never left the property. I don't show my birds and except for attending the county fair once a year, am not around anyone else's birds. This is probably true of most of the healthy pet chickens that have been slaughtered in the name of controlling this disease whether sick or not. They may classify pet chickens in the same manner as gamefowl as so called "backyard exhibition chickens", but there is a huge difference in activity off the property and exposure to other birds and potentially infective body fluids. And yeah, few leave the property with birds they know are sick, but there is an incubation period where the birds appear healthy. It is also possible that some birds from Mexico, where nothing at all is done about the disease, are resistant, but may act as carriers of the disease, and though appearing healthy, would test positive due to previous exposure that they survived. From what I know about VND, it is an indiscriminant killer and how well cared for and fed the bird is has little effect on its susceptability to this disease, though may have a small effect on its survival of it.
