Rebuilding my Farm

[Farmerboy16]

I have been thinking and planning and researching about the birds and the disease that they have.

I have found this- http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...qwoY1CFb-arhVus1A&sig2=IEHCwbX2jl20CT3enixe7w


I will be experimenting this way-


Treat the flock with Denagard, and when the birds get better and the shed level is down, then take the eggs, and dip them in Tylan solution, then send the eggs to the lab for testing for MG. If clean, I can start over with clean offspring from the infected stock. I will wait until all the chicks that have mature and are laying, so I can start saving the eggs to replace the infected stock. I will cull all the birds before dipping the eggs for incubation. I estimate that the youngest chicks that I have will be laying in June or July. I will do all of that IF THE EXPERIMENT WORKS. I will treat the eggs as soon Tylan and Denagard comes in the mail in a few days.

I will appreciate any input.

 

[Debi214]

So sorry to hear this Daron! I hope you can cure it with the Denagard....I hate having to cull any living creature....

 

[Farmerboy16]

Thanks Debi.



Well, I got Denagard in the mail on Friday, and Tylan on Saturday. But I was so busy with family stuff that I was not able to start the treatments. I will dip whatever eggs that I have today, and treat the flock too.

KathyinMo gave me this treatment plan, and I will be using it.

Quote-
Denagard dosages:
Preventative: 8 cc/ml per gallon Give: 3 days (1st week of life); 1-2 days every 3-4 weeks

Treatment: 16 cc/ml per gallon Give: 3 - 5 days (Personally, I would give it for a full week, if I tried this).


For dipping eggs treatment-

(This was taken from Canada Forum, so things are different in Measurements and temps)

Quote-

For my eggs, I placed them in an incubator for 3 hours at 37 degrees. In order to prevent contaminating my hatching incubator with anything that might be on the outside of the untreated eggs I used a second incubator for the initial heating stage. One could probably make a basic heating box with a light bulb/cooler for this if you don't have an extra incubator to dedicate to this procedure. My hatching incubator was disinfected with virkon and set up/prewarmed as you would for normal hatching.

When the 3 hour incubation was almost complete I prepared my Tylan solution. The literature tested between 400 to 1000 ppm concentration - I chose to do 500ppm as I did not see much of a difference in the results from the papers with the increased amount of tylan. This works out to be 500mg of tylan soluble powder per 1 litre of tap water. The tylan solution must be at 5 degrees for the process to work (the antibiotic then travels through the larger pores of the shell and into the egg, aided by the temperature difference between the prewarmed egg and the cold tylan solution). You must add the water to the tylan powder and not the other way around, or the tylan powder will be very difficult to dissolve. I also refrigerated my water prior to mixing and had several trays of ice on hand.

When you are ready, you take the eggs from the 37 degree incubator then put directly into the 5 degree tylan solution. If I saw any dirt/feces on the outside of the eggs, I quickly rinsed the soiled portion under luke warm water prior to putting into the antibiotic solution. The eggs soak in this solution for 30 minutes. I mixed very gently, often using my hands. I also wore latex gloves when handling the eggs and tylan solution.

Once you start adding the warm eggs, the tylan solution increases temperature quite quickly. For my eggs (47 total) I used 2 litres of cold water, 1 litre of crushed ice and 1.5 g of tylan soluble powder. In the future, I would probably also put the egg soaking container in another vessel packed with ice to try to keep the temperature at 5 degrees. Note, that if you add more ice directly to the solution, you also need to add more tylan to keep the concentration in the target range of 400-1000ppm.

After the 30 minutes in the tylan solution, I gently dabbed off excess liquid and placed the cleaned eggs in my hatching incubator as you would normally.

Hopefully I will have a good hatch of myco free chicks in 21 days! Guelph offers blood testing for myco at a very reasonable rate (about $3.00 per sample) so I plan on monitoring my flock in the future for myco. I will basically be maintaining a closed flock from now on, only restocking by way of hatching eggs, and if I do have a bird go off site to a show or something it will either be sold at the show, or return to "freezer camp" and not the general population.

 

[Hillbilly Hen]

Good Luck Daron!

 

[Farmerboy16]

Thanks Hillbilly Hen.

I just got the vet bill today. There goes my paycheck for the last two weeks. But, on the bright side, the antibiotic is working! The peacock that got sick, is doing much better, and he has no bubbling around his eye, and the running nose is gone. Also the swollen sinus has gone down. In-fact he looks like that he never got sick in the first place, and this is only day 3 of the treatment! Yay for Denagard!

 

[mong7769]

Daron,

I am so glad to hear that the antibiotic is working! I will continue to send positive thoughts your way!

 

[Wynette]

Daron, as you know, I do not agree with using antibioitics in this way; however, I know what a tough time you have had, and I truly respect and admire you for taking this on. You care for your critters enormously, and that shows!

I hope it all works out as you want it to - and I'm glad to call you a friend!

 

[speckledhen]

Well, since you've already posted a private PM without my permission (please don't do that again!), I will say that I cannot disagree more with this line of thinking of using antibiotics as preventatives. It will not change the carrier status of the bird that already has CRD, either. Now, you cannot ethically sell any of those birds or their chicks without telling the buyer about the CRD and what you've been doing about it.

My personal opinion is that folks will do anything to avoid having to cull a bird that should be culled. I am sorry for your troubles, I really am.


**Thank you for removing the PM. Not a good thing to do, though I say the same things on the forum as I do in PM.

 

[Farmerboy16]

Wynette-
I am not too crazy using antibiotics too, but just want to see if I can hatch clean offspring, and preserve the Tomaru Longcrower linage that I got from you. I am glad to call you a friend too.

Speckle Hen-
I edited that part. Sorry about that, did not know that was considered wrong.

I am using the antibiotic only to make the birds better and to see if I can hatch clean offspring using the dipping method too. If that works, then I will cull all that I have, and start over with clean offspring. I will close the flock, just breed with what I have, and possibly never let any birds free range. If I am not going to free range at all, then I will not give them any antibiotics. However a BYCer did some research about natural treatment for MG, and she found that fermented wheat germ may be effective against MG. I will try that on the new stock.

I do let the people know what I feed and give my birds.

Thanks for the input, please keep them coming.

 

[chicken grandma]

Hi Daron,

You made a comment about taking a bird to a show and selling the bird at the show. I think that it would be a good idea not to take a chicken to a show or sell a chicken until you have acheived a flock that is healthy and that you know are not carriers of MG.

The wild birds in your area may carry MG.

When I went to the poultry workshop at Michigan State this week, Dr. Mick Fulton said that the swab test for MG is more accurate than the blood test. Do you know how much it costs to do a swab test? Is it as reasonable as the blood test? It would be good to use the most accurate test available!