Peeps in Europe!

[Gerritses]

@Gerritses ,
In the Netherlands you are not obliged to vaccinate as long as you don’t have more than 250 chickens.

I can’t answer you’re question to vaccinate or not. Because it all depends on how you want to maintain you're flock.

Most people who start with chickens choose a breed they like from another hobbyists, a ‘exhibition shop, marktplaats or start just random with a chicken that was lost.
Getting sick chickens comes later or if you where well prepared before you get a nasty disease.

I don’t vaccinate. I have a healthy flock and I don’t want to start with vaccinations because they are very expensive if you have only a few chickens and have to go to a vet where everything cost at least 25 euro to start with.

To prevent sicknesses as much as possible I do not introduce new chicks or chickens. I buy fertilised eggs in spring if I have a broody.

Do you know if you're chickens are vaccinated? Some breeders vaccinate standard all the chickens and don't even bother to tell the buyer. In that case you might have a latent Marek. The chickens don’t get sick but ... If you ever want to hatch eggs and the chicks are not vaccinated the chickens with latent Marek can infect the new chicks.

If you have chickens for exhibitions and you want to show you’re finest chickens , you can’t prevent contact with other chickens (and diseases). In that case it is wise but expensive to vaccinate. If you often introduce new chickens in an existing flock its wise to vaccinate too. But if you introduce only from a reliable source and not so often you don't need to vaccinate imo. But better quarantine new chickens a few weeks before you mingle them. And don’t mix chickens with chicks.

There is never a guarantee, but this way it should be quite safe. There are always possibilities something can happen with you’re flock. Bird mites and foxes are often a bigger problem than diseases. So be prepared for them too!

Wow! Thank you for such a comprehensive answer! We are planning on getting our first chickens through a breeder from the Barnevelder club so hopefully is a good and trustworthy source. We will definitely ask if the chicks were vaccinated but it sounds like with good management practices the risks can be lowered significantly.

@Gerritses
PS 1 My mother always bought laying hybrids. After 3 years my father/brother culled them all. Good for a chicken soup. And again she bought new chickens. So there was never a problem with introducing new chickens.

PS 2 if you like to read things in Dutch about chickens, I recommend reading levendehave.nl . This is a reliable and not commercial site for hobbyists. I find the info quit good.

Longer term we are also hoping to eat some of our own chickens as well so this may also be our tactic.

Great website, I have saved it in my livestock bookmarks folder

 

[Gerritses]

Who else has a heatwave or other extreme weather?

This is a report of our weather in NL (source NRC newspaper) :
With a measured temperature of 30.0 degrees Celsius at 1 p.m. on Wednesday in De Bilt, another heat record has been broken. It is the seventh day in a row that KNMI measures a "tropical" temperature of thirty degrees or more at the main station. This has not happened since the first temperature measurements in 1901, Weeronline reports.

The previous record dates from 1941 and 1975, when it became tropically warm six days in a row. On Tuesday, the heat also broke a record: De Bilt measured a temperature of 35 degrees or more somewhere in the Netherlands for the fifth day in a row. That too has not happened since 1901.

Luckily my chickens seem to do okay in this heat. But sometimes they open their beaks because they are quit .

Its good to know your chickens seem to be coping OK. I'm so happy the weather is due to cool down again tomorrow.... the Netherlands isn't designed for this many days over 30C!! Do you do anything to help the chickens cool down? I've heard frozen fruit can be a nice snack on these hot days.

 

[Gerritses]

Vaccination against Newcaste Disease is required in Germany. If you don't it could get quite expensive.
Since I show my animals and keep them in a breeding club area, there are many birds. They get Marek's and hopefully next year coccidia. I had lots of trouble with coccidia this year.

We are only 20 minutes from the German border so I will do some reading up on coccidia!

 

[BDutch]

Its good to know your chickens seem to be coping OK. I'm so happy the weather is due to cool down again tomorrow.... the Netherlands isn't designed for this many days over 30C!! Do you do anything to help the chickens cool down? I've heard frozen fruit can be a nice snack on these hot days.

I give 2x a day fresh water in a bowl in this heat. Gave them a old cucumber from the fridge , they loved it.

The laying nests have a sunscreen on the lid (piece from a car sun screen) and they have loads of ventilation in the roosting area. I build this area as a summer coop. But the chickens roost there in winter too. They love the light and air.

Only 1 chicken prefers to sleep in the coop with little ventilation. She had her wings spread out when she roosted.

In autumn I close the hwc ventilation strips on the west and north side of this ‘summer’ coop. But even then it’s very airy. Its open on the whole south side. East side is a window.

In the run there are several bushes for shade.

there are a few articles on this subject on BYC
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/how-to-care-for-chickens-in-the-hot-summer-months.63773/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/a-simple-way-to-keep-chickens-cool-for-the-summer.74054/

 

[abpatchy]

We are only 20 minutes from the German border so I will do some reading up on coccidia!

coccidia are everywhere all around the world. Even if there were never any chickens. They are in the ground. They effect sheep, horses, pigs... you name it. There are different kind of coccidia... 7 or 8 effect chickens. By the time they are grown most chickens have developed an immunity to coccidia. Only if they are weakened by other sickness, mites or other stress could they kill a chicken. The most vulnerabel are the chicks. And since I hatch a large amount at a time I get them vaccinated... it is actually an infection with weakened coccidia to get them to build up that immunitiy. I am not sure how they build up an immunity since coccidia is a parasite (how do you get immune to a parasite) but that's how it works.

 

[Erba]

Oh my gosh, my shipped eggs are actually hatching, despite having all had weird air cells. I was expecting a disaster, especially as it was my first time incubating shipped eggs. It's not something I would recommend for the faint hearted, but I really needed a new blood line. They came from BW but they were 300 km away, not a drive I wanted to make.

 

[abpatchy]

Oh my gosh, my shipped eggs are actually hatching, despite having all had weird air cells. I was expecting a disaster, especially as it was my first time incubating shipped eggs. It's not something I would recommend for the faint hearted, but I really needed a new blood line. They came from BW but they were 300 km away, not a drive I wanted to make.

keep us posted!!!

 

[BDutch]

keep us posted!!!

And pictured of course.

 

[Erba]

So I got 3 healthy chicks out of the shipped eggs, for my first time dealing with saddled air cells I am pleased with the results. I just did a sexing trick, called The OLDEST chicken trick ~ HEN or ROOSTER?!? on youtube and going by that, all three are hens!! I will repeat the test in a day or two to see if it was just a fluke, but if this trick really works, then my Light Sussex breeding hobby is finally getting some desperately needed hens!

 

[abpatchy]

So I got 3 healthy chicks out of the shipped eggs, for my first time dealing with saddled air cells I am pleased with the results. I just did a sexing trick, called The OLDEST chicken trick ~ HEN or ROOSTER?!? on youtube and going by that, all three are hens!! I will repeat the test in a day or two to see if it was just a fluke, but if this trick really works, then my Light Sussex breeding hobby is finally getting some desperately needed hens!

That would be really exciting!! I hope you ended up with 3 hens! That would be fantastic!