Official BYC Poll: Are You Comfortable Injecting Vaccines or Medications Into Your Birds?

[jus10inla]

Not stickin them, there not pets.. they provide eggs & food. If they need medical assistance my form of pill is a 22 short hollow point

not spendin money on a replacable bird. If A vaccine is 15-20$, plus weeks of nursing, not laying, etc… a 22 bullet is around 10cents. Plus i can buy a replacement bird . Still be cheaper than the vaccine.

if a virus knocks out whole flock, see above post..

 

[Ursuline Chick]

I chose "other" because although I have never had to inject a chicken before, I am a Registered Nurse. Like injecting a human for their health, anatomy knowledge would be all I would feel I would need to be completely comfortable to promote my chickens' health.

 

[MysteryChicken]

That's a shame, I lost an entire flock to Newcastle, I hadn't vaccinated yet, I've vaccinated my current flock once with directions from the vet.

I'm not in a location that had been affected by it.

 

[SweetPoultry]

I'm not in a location that had been affected by it.

It's just an example, diseases are everywhere just because you don't have Newcastle doesn't mean they can't catch another one. You know the saying "prevention is better than cure".

 

[MickWithChicks]

Not stickin them, there not pets.. they provide eggs & food. If they need medical assistance my form of pill is a 22 short hollow point

not spendin money on a replacable bird. If A vaccine is 15-20$, plus weeks of nursing, not laying, etc… a 22 bullet is around 10cents. Plus i can buy a replacement bird . Still be cheaper than the vaccine.

if a virus knocks out whole flock, see above post..

Costs me $1 a bird and protects the whole flock. There are feed costs associated with raising chicks to laying hens and fertile roosters that far exceed $2 per bird.

There is zero nursing after vaccinating your chicks. Not sure what gives you the impression that vaccinating a chick means weeks of nursing afterwards? You've likely been misled there.

Furthermore, just because they're not pets and only provide eggs and food for you shouldn't mean that you can't/shouldn't provide good animal husbandry. Preventing illness in your "just food" animals will increase the longevity of the entire flock, improve overall laying rates (thus reducing costs of feed to eggs ratio) and likely means that you'll be able to cull for meat in non-diseased but spent birds rather than meaninglessly shooting them disposing of their bodies without consumption.

 

[Ursuline Chick]

Costs me $1 a bird and protects the whole flock. There are feed costs associated with raising chicks to laying hens and fertile roosters that far exceed $2 per bird.

There is zero nursing after vaccinating your chicks. Not sure what gives you the impression that vaccinating a chick means weeks of nursing afterwards? You've likely been misled there.

Furthermore, just because they're not pets and only provide eggs and food for you shouldn't mean that you can't/shouldn't provide good animal husbandry. Preventing illness in your "just food" animals will increase the longevity of the entire flock, improve overall laying rates (thus reducing costs of feed to eggs ratio) and likely means that you'll be able to cull for meat in non-diseased but spent birds rather than meaninglessly shooting them disposing of their bodies without consumption.

I agree, it's called animal husbandry for a reason. What ever you keep animals for, you are responsible for them and their care.

 

[Goosebaby]

Costs me $1 a bird and protects the whole flock. There are feed costs associated with raising chicks to laying hens and fertile roosters that far exceed $2 per bird.

There is zero nursing after vaccinating your chicks. Not sure what gives you the impression that vaccinating a chick means weeks of nursing afterwards? You've likely been misled there.

Furthermore, just because they're not pets and only provide eggs and food for you shouldn't mean that you can't/shouldn't provide good animal husbandry. Preventing illness in your "just food" animals will increase the longevity of the entire flock, improve overall laying rates (thus reducing costs of feed to eggs ratio) and likely means that you'll be able to cull for meat in non-diseased but spent birds rather than meaninglessly shooting them disposing of their bodies without consumption.

My birds are my babies so whatever care they require I’ll get them if I can.

But if I look at poultry raising from purely an economical viewpoint, say if I had a full small scale operation “500 layers” not vaccinating is too much of a risk to take for the investment, especially as more time passes, more investment feeding those birds, then imagine losing and having to replace those birds before I’d seen a return on that investment. Imagine that but with a full scale commercial operation, “4000+ birds” that would be an enormous loss, not just for layers but for meat birds too, imagine if the whole flock needed to be condemned?

That’s why farmers vaccinate and treat the flock if it’s something that can be treated, the loss of not doing so could just break them.

 

[Ponypoor]

I have until recently been fortunate and the chickens I've looked after have been by and large healthy and in an area of the world that rarely saw the killer diseases that can be so easily reduced in severity by vaccination.
It would be a shame if this thread turned into a pro or anti vaccination rant.
I'm going to concentrate on the "comfortable with injecting" part of the question.
There are numerous methods of introducing medication into a chickens bloodstream. I have favoured the make a solution and dip bits of bread into it and give to the chicken method in the past and more recently I've adminsitered worming and coccidiosis treatments by this method. I've been in the completely frustrated group at times in the past when a chicken has point blank refused to be even remotley cooperative and would not eat anything that I had carefully doctored with the medication. I've spent hours catching and then trying to treat the few complete nutters that kick off the moment you try to restrain them.
It has been times like this I wished thhe medication required came in an injectable form. A quick capture, a towel wrap and an injection would have saved me and the chicken from so much stress.
On a few occasions in the past the only option availible was an intramuscular injection of a particular drug. With the right syringe and needle and a basic understanding of a chickens physiology I found it less of a problem than my prefered "bits of bread" method.
There is less concern about whether the patient gets the correct dose. None of the chickens I've injected showed any diistress from the needle going in, or the pressure of the fluid goinng into the muscle.
So, while not an expert injector I've done it enough to realise the advantages of a needle and syringe and if every drug came in an injectible form my house would on occasions look like a junkies playground.

OMG hahaha I hear u on the 'junkies playground'. All the injectable stuff I give here I have my own sharps container!

I have had horses all my life, not to mention dogs, cats, rabbits, cavy, birds since childhood. And now chickens.....

Early on I learnt the value of getting my critters vaccinated, de-wormed or antibiotics - an ounce of prevention is worth a POUND of cure!

And of course to save money on expensive Vet bills I learnt to give shots of everything from Rabies to Eqvalan and Droncet (it helps that I also was a nurse haha).

If it come in an injectable form, I would prefer to give it that way. One quick jab and it's done - no fighting with the animals to stress them out.

And in the end it's one more tool and skill I have to ensure healthy happy long-living animal friends!

 

[Ponypoor]

Im wondering why

The second option (you check the circle) is pretty much no you wouldn't give an injection. You are getting someone else to do it for you.

There is also an option for 'other'.

 

[Ponypoor]

I have not used any vaccines or medications for my birds. First of all, I have never needed any medications. Second, I doubt if I would spend very much money to medicate a sick bird that costs me $3.00 to replace. My chickens are not my pets, although I really enjoy my backyard flock. But I won't bring a sick chicken to the vet because I know I could replace my entire backyard flock 2 or even 3 times for the cost of one vet visit. Chickens have relatively short life spans, but if someone wants to have chickens as pets and take them to vet care, then that is fine with me.

A laying hens here goes for at least $20.... More if it's a 'breed' and not your average barnyard mutt!