Official BYC Poll: What Are You Doing to Protect Your Flock From Bird Flu (H5N1) Infection?

[JeanetteDunn]

Quick question. I'm not getting any eggs soon but I think this will be good to know.

If you bought hatching eggs from a breeder who's birds have Bird Flu would the chicks be carriers of Bird Flu?

If they did have it, you'd probably see death of at least some of them before they got out of the brooder and in with the rest of your flock. I read somewhere it takes out young ones fairly quickly. I'd keep them separate for sure. If any died, I'd be worried.

 

[Helanaii]

I’m keeping my chicks Indoors until I absolutely can’t stand them anymore

They’re currently in my bedroom, so all shoes are taken off before entering. My flock outside I’m afraid have no choice but to free range and keep doing what they are doing. The rooster gets very stressed being in the run and takes it out on my poor hens.

This is going to be an interesting time for everyone… not only do we have to quarantine, but now our poor chooks do too Just some more stress to add on!

 

[calboy147]

Most of that list i was doing before i ever knew about bird flu. The only change is everyday i pray God's hand of protection over my little plot of ground and everything on it.

 

[Disheygirl]

If I tried to tarp their run, any wind would scare them senseless and any rain would cause the entire thing to collapse.

My girls don't free range because I don't want to accept the risk. We have a hawk's nest on our property and my house cameras have caught fox and coyote at night; I've also seen a red fox roll up during the day.

The past two years have been a great reminder that the risk profile matters. If every wild bird carried the deadly flu, my flock would be locked in my barn. But - according to the data - the chances of them getting anything from a stray bird turd are slim to none, so I'm not going to lock them inside and make them miserable for months on end.

And also, the risk of them killing each other while locked in a space that's wing-to-wing 24/7 is greater than the bird flu. So, they'll keep living their happy chicken lives, unaware that the sky is falling. And if it does, I'll play the lottery, because those would be some serious odds.

 

[Opiumbrella]

I've stopped freely feeding the wild waterfowl visitors and anytime they come looking for me on the property, I lead them back to their designated feeding area, away from my chickens and ducks. If I don't feed them, they will walk all around the property looking for me (pooping all along) because I have always fed them and interacted with them. I have also started doing all chicken chores before doing any chores with my ducks. I carry my big ducks down to their duck house at night and to their "run" in the morning so they're not stepping in any wild waterfowl poop since we now have so many wild waterfowl visitors that spend a lot of their day pooping in the path to and from the big duck house. I keep a very close eye on the wild birds around here as well, not that this helps prevent necessarily.

I do this with my turkeys. Only took a few days of me feeding them there at that spot at the same time day and evening and they wait there for me instead of coming to my barn.

 

[Shezadandy]

My chickens have never free ranged, due to predators. I made this decision when I got them 2 years ago, and it hasn't changed.

I have a roof over the run, have dedicated "coop shoes," and don't leave food in the run overnight. The run is enclosed with 2x3 wire fence and 1/2" hardware cloth.

We have lots of geese and some cranes in the area and we're on a river, so the threat is out there.

When we go on vacation later this year, I'll supply bootie shoe covers to my chicken sitter.

LOL my chicken sitter wears MY chicken shoes when she chicken sits. Thankfully she doesn't mind.

 

[Frizzled-n-Sizzled]

Thank you for raising more awareness of this issue! I went to the above CDC and USDA websites and was surprised but not shocked to see our state having zero cases… Our state doesn’t seem to report well on diseases in general…

The FWC (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission) has a great map that shows reported cases. A couple weeks ago there was only a few reports of wild birds now there is a lot more.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught many a hard lesson on how horrible diseases and can be. We continue to be safe for ourselves and others and now use similar methods we use to protect ourselves from covid-19 to protect our birdies… Since this strain of avian flu is highly contagious, ones with compromised immune systems (like myself) have to be careful as well.

Below are some other websites that I found to be helpful in this regard. Everyone take care of each other as well as your birdies!

https://myfwc.com/research/wildlife/health/avian/influenza/

https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/PS044

https://nwdistrict.ifas.ufl.edu/pha...usda-aphis-national-poultry-improvement-plan/

https://www.fdacs.gov/Agriculture-Industry/Livestock/Chickens-Poultry/Avian-Influenza

 

[chicknmania]

Many of these things I did before the AI anyway. My biggest change is that I now carry a can of disinfectant in the car and spray down my shoes and the floor/pedal area of my car before returning home.

I do that too if I have been in an area where there are a lot of waterfowl, or at the feed store. I also hose off my tires at the car wash if I have been in the areas I mentioned and disinfect with Oxine.

 

[PioneerChicks]

If they did have it, you'd probably see death of at least some of them before they got out of the brooder and in with the rest of your flock. I read somewhere it takes out young ones fairly quickly. I'd keep them separate for sure. If any died, I'd be worried.

Okay, thank you!
I'm not taking in birds from other places right now, I was just curious.

 

[BDutch]

In my country the Avian Influenza is returning every winter for the past couple of years. Our government forbids free ranging every winter til halfway spring.

For the hobbyists there are not so much rules as for the the farmers because they don’t contribute much to the spreading. The chicken run doesn’t need to be covered.
I rather not close in my chickens all the time because it’s healthy for them to free range at least a few hours every day. All these years I didn’t come into trouble with it. I am lucky there aren’t any farms or other people around with chickens and only few geese and ducks fly over our property.

This years the Bird flu is more contagious. And when a chicken factory at the border of my town was infected with the bird flu, I decided my chickens needed to stay within boundaries. Because of the risk of contamination but also the concern that the authorities (food-police /destructors) would come to kill my flock, because I didn’t follow the prescribed rules.

Because the run is without any greens/grasses/herbs since I locked them up more often I wanted to extend the run temporally an made a fence around the old , small veggie garden and sacrificed it to the chickens. Put 1 meter high hwc around it. I never used chemicals or made any other changes.
The wobbly fence worked for a few weeks. But the grass is always greener outside and my lightweight Dutch escaped more often as time passed.

I hoped this bird flu would go away with all the sunshine we had in spring. But it didn’t. Not very far from where I live (15-20 km) is the heart of the chicken industry. And there is one outbreak after the other this last month. Altogether they cleared 2.9 million chickens in the Netherlands this ‘season’. The registrated clearings/kills are partly from infected farms, but also from farms without bird flu but just bc they are within 1 km from an infected farm.

I hate this whole situation. We just have too many chicken farms in the Netherlands. Many of the chicken farms are for the export of eggs and meat to other countries. The institutes didn’t start to develop a vaccine in earlier years because it’s not allowed to export vaccinated chickens. This year they did develop a vaccine but they still don’t vaccinate the chickens for the same reason.

The reason we have this bird flu is because the original bird flu (who was not a danger) developed into a monster in these factory chicken farms where chickens live in unhealthy and cramped conditions.

P.s. maybe they allow hobbyist and small scale farmers for the local market to vaccinate soon.