Mahonri's 2nd Annual BYC EASTER HATCH. Post pics of your chicks!

[thebirdguy]

I'm glad I'm not the only one this happens to...

My last hatch I had 3 people committed to buying chicks before I even set the eggs.. The deal was I would call them the day they started hatching and they would come pick them up by that following weekend.. So I set the eggs, they started hatching I made the calls... 2 of the 3 backed out completely and the third took almost a week to respond to messages left.. (he did end up following through eventually) I am think the cash up front policy to hatch is a good idea.. I was raised that your word was all you had and that if you said you'd do something, you better be dead if you didn't follow through.. Sure wish everyone lived by that mantra...

 

[Cat Water]

Just marking my place....
I just watched a pair of wild turkeys walk down the road... Huntin' season's comin' up!

 

[superchemicalgirl]

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AMEN!

 

[ChooksChick]

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I make folks PayPal and meet me somewhere. It's how I track my income and I'm done with no-shows. If they don't PayPal, I sell to someone else. Company policy, sorry.

Same for hatching birds for folks. Pay up front. If there's an egg-cident and I don't hatch what we agreed on, they can have a full or partial refund or wait for the next batch.

 

[buckabucka]

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AMEN!

Sorry about your rude customers, SCG. It's bad enough to back out of the deal, but to refuse to pick up the phone is just plain obnoxious.

Thanks for the birthday wishes.

I'm hoping my second hatch will work out, and that I won't have to try naked-necks!

 

[superchemicalgirl]

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And I'm mostly hoping it works out slightly for you... but I'm also hoping hard to push those cute NNs.


The good news about the customer not showing up is I don't have to get rid of any chickens now

... I'll just tell my boyfriend, HEY I TRIED! NOW GO BUILD ANOTHER COOP (PLEASE)

 

[debilorrah]

I just poked the hell outta myself with 3-way. No one ever told me hay was a deadly weapon.

 

[Mahonri]

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Been there, done that, got the scars on my knees.

 

[Hurley]

In regards to FIP and its contagiousness - FIP cats as a rule aren't very contagious (if at all) to other cats. FIP is a condition caused by certain strains of the feline corona virus. Most cats with corona show very little sign if any. It's a mild gastrointestinal virus that unless combined with a parvo virus, causes very little detriment to the cat. There are many stains and it is always mutating, with many chances to be more or less virulent. In a percentage of cats (listed 5-10% in most references) infected with corona virus, the virus either mutates within that cat to cause FIP by recruiting the cat's own immune system or due to an immune overreaction to the virus, the cat's own body causes the disease. Either way, the effect is devastating and fatal.

When you are talking shelters (or catteries) where numerous animals from different places are exposed to each other in close confines, they pass back and forth any number of strains of enteric corona virus. The risk for FIP is much higher in these situations because their immune systems see a barrage of varying mutations of corona virus. It's not an FIP epidemic so much as a bad situation of jamming together many stressed and unvaccinated animals to play go fish with their varying diseases. Think of the problem with child care and continuously sick kids and their parents. There isn't really a way to prevent it in that type of environment, unfortunately. Not only can you not vaccinate against the disease with any effectiveness, but most animals coming into a shelter are perfect breeding grounds for the different diseases, since often they are unvaccinated and naive to the diseases. Couple that with being stressed out in a completely strange environment and it's easy to see why these cats could contract the disease in higher numbers than say a cat from a small time breeder, etc.

I haven't heard anyone claim that FIP is completely not contagious in any way, shape, or form, but it is not directly contagious. An FIP cat may shed corona virus (though usually by that stage they are barely shedding, if at all), but that doesn't directly mean that a household cat will contract corona, or if they do it doesn't mean that they won't clear it or that the virus will mutate to FIP or stimulate the immune system to overreact leading to FIP.

I have clients with an FIP cat in the household with other non-affected cats, have been for years with no issues. Some don't succumb rapidly to the disease, some do. It all depends on the reaction of the immune system and what form of the disease it caused by that reaction.


editted to add: http://www.vet.cornell.edu/fhc/brochures/fip.html - a decent link to basic FIP info out of Cornell

 

[Cat Water]

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Explain?