Quarantine is recommended, but most backyard set ups are not set up for quarantine, and if you don't do it right, you may as well not do it. The chance is real of brining in a disease. However, you can greatly reduce those odds. If you would severely mourn a flock loss, then you really should not risk adding birds.
If you want to add birds, and understand the possible risk, then I have often added birds with no quarantine. However, I do not add birds from auctions or swaps. I do not add birds that do not appear healthy. If you are buying birds from an established flock, and those birds appear healthy in similar location to your own, they probably are healthy and will not be a problem.
There are many people on here that are constantly doctoring their birds. I do not, if something is sick, I cull it and get it out of my flock, but to be honest, I have the right size flock for my set up, and I have never had all those diseases and sicknesses in my birds. In 8 years of having birds, I have culled two due to disease.
Chicks I suppose could carry disease, but in my opinion it is mostly unlikely, as in chicks are fairly fragile, and a sick chick is quickly a dead chick.
I have often thought of having a closed flock, but really life happens, and I have often needed to add birds to get through the winter, or found some birds that made a nice addition to the flock. I love having a flock, however, through the years, birds come and go. Other people like individual birds as pets, just two different schools of thought. However, one can worry the enjoyment right out of having chickens.
Mrs K
