moving chickens long distance

[relizabethcole]

My husband is planning to move four adult chickens from North Carolina to Iowa this summer (21 hours.) From what we read on BYC we thought this was possible. Someone we know (who does not have chickens) is convinced that our chickens will suffer and possibly die. This person is scaring us! So I want to outline our plan and see what everyone thinks.

My husband will start out early in the morning with chickens in two guinea pig crates in the back of our SUV. They will have shavings to sit on and rabbit waterers (we are going to try to get them used to the waterers before he leaves) and food. During the day he'll have air conditioning on, but he will have to stop and sleep at some point. We were thinking that if he stops after dark and leaves the windows down they would be ok. They live outdoors all summer in the south so they are used to heat and this does not seem to me like it would be that much hotter than their coop at night, being in crates that are open to the air with all windows open. Then he would leave again early in the morning. He would give them fruit during the trip as we've seen suggested. Once he got to our new house he would put the chickens in their crates in the backyard, garage or house depending on what he thinks is best. The next day he would assemble their coop and put them in it.

Our friend insists that this plan will be inhumane to the chickens and possibly kill them. I can't see how it would, but we love our chickens (that's why we want to take them) and would feel terrible if we made the wrong call. Any one have any experience with this?

 

[donrae]

Tell your "friend" this is no longer a topic of discussion between the two of you.

It sounds like a fine plan to me. I think being in the vehicle during the day is more than my birds would get being transported! It's the same way you'd transport a dog or a cat, or even a horse (except the being in the backseat part

) when you move. I'm not sure where the inhumane or suffering parts come in, sounds pretty cushy to me.

Birds are crated and transported all the time. That's how they get to shows....and you know those folks take good care of their birds! For a show the bird is crated for transport, then in a small-ish cage for the show, then back to the crate...much more time confined than you're looking at. Plus, some show areas are HOT!

Again, I'd just tell the person you've made a decision and not talk about it with them anymore. You're doing fine.

 

[Blooie]

Transporting them the way you describe should be perfectly fine - as Donrae said so well it's done all the time using all kinds of transport methods. But the one thing I didn't see in your plan was anything about having them veterinarian certified as safe to transport, and Iowa's law is pretty clear on this. I copied and pasted this from their website:

"Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship
Bill Northey, Secretary of Agriculture

All livestock or poultry or birds shipped or in any manner transported or moved into Iowa shall be accompanied by a Certificate of Veterinary Inspection or permit or both when required, or a properly completed and distributed form VS 9-3 (poultry), which must be attached to the waybill or shall be in possession of the driver of the vehicle or the person in charge of the animals.

All animals and poultry or birds entering the State of Iowa shall be consigned to a corporation or an individual who is a legal resident of the State of Iowa or to a legal agent authorized by law to do business within the state."

I hate to toss cold water on your plan but states which are primarily agricultural are pretty strict about these things.

 

[relizabethcole]

Thank you both for your quick and excellent replies! I am relieved that the transportation plan sounds ok!

Thank you also for the info on getting them into Iowa. I cannot get a permit until we get there, but I have a permit application and the municipal code and I was planning on having a bill of health from a vet. I will look more carefully into the information you have posted and see if I can get exactly what I need.

Anyone else out there done a move this long or stopped over night?

 

[relizabethcole]

Hi, I thought I would update after the move. Everything worked out wonderfully! We moved the chickens exactly as planned, except we put four chickens in one crate, instead of four in two. they drank out of rabbit waterers and didn't really bother with the fruit. They were perfectly happy. Overall it was much easier than we anticipated. Once he got here, my husband set up the coop that our realtor had allowed us to ship to her and had put in our garage. In the chickens went and they never missed a day laying, even on the road.

 

[relizabethcole]

oh, I also wanted to say what we did about the permitting. we looked into getting a certificate of veterinary inspection and the testing that is required and found out that it would cost about $150 PER CHICKEN! this seemed impractical for four pet chickens. So we risked it and just drove them without anything (we did have the permit application for the city we were moving to, hoping that in case we were stopped on the way they would figure we were someone else's problem.) We figured that as long as my husband did not get pulled over crossing the state line we would be ok, and we were right. while we understand the safety precautions of agricultural states, our chickens will never get into the commercial food supply and will live out their lives in our backyard, so we felt it was safe.