Saw something today that scared the daylights out of me.

[AgroUrica]

Never ever ever buy any birds from there. Ever. Unless you kill them offsite and nothing from the processing enters your place without disinfection first. And don't invite the owner for dinner either

Sounds like they harbor disease all the time and it would simply be borrowing trouble to ever do business with them, unfortunately.

Yes, that sounds like a disaster. I grew up on a farm without water, and we had to haul water in for our animals. It's a lot of work and does make sanitation difficult. I feel for you.

AFAIK, nothing will help mitigate the disease or prevent it other than vaccinating prior to exposure, so I don't know if I would go nuts looking for light milk. Keep your head down, a close eye on your birds and pray.

I'll be interested to hear what goes down...do you end up with a pueblo-wide outbreak, or does this burn out quickly....

I'll definitely keep you posted on developments. Should be interesting to see if they sell birds again at Monday's market.....I'm betting they do and it'll be really tough for me to hold my tongue.

Speaking with my lady partner who helps me with the bird business, I've made a decision that was probably a long time coming anyway. I'm going to let these three different age groups (800 birds total) I've got going now complete their cycle. Once that's done I'll change my setup slightly and from here forward will use an all-in, all-out technique working with 1,000 birds each time. I suspect that that will greatly reduce my risks of exposure to disease.

 

[SunnySkies]

I am not sure I could go without saying anything. But I might be too scared to go near them, lol!

Take disinfectant (bleach, Lysol, something) with you and clean everything after you leave the market area but before you get home. This is in case you cross paths with someone who was handling their birds and then shook your hand...walked in front of you...brushed against your clothing....that sort of thing.

We did a fun demo with my team one day while out on the CA END task force in 2003. We got a powder that only shows up with UV. One person, and we didn't know who they were, was "dirty" by putting a set amount of the powder on their hands and shoes, and we went about our normal business of prepping our trucks and so forth. Then we looked with the light..."germs" everywhere! Every single person had it on them. It taught my team the importance of careful handling and careful prep and how easy it would be to contaminate someone else and their equipment. But it sunk in how easy it would be to spread such disease via unsuspecting people, people who just had casual contact with someone carrying some viral particles.

All in, all out is best for disease control. It isn't as fun, but it does give you a chance to clean everything completely, take a breath, do any disease testing you might choose to do and then enter the fray again.

 

[AgroUrica]

Well, as expected, they were there today in the market with live birds. I didn't talk to the lady, which is probably better as I'm sure I'd have offended her at some point. I stayed as far away as possible and was there for only a few minutes. For now I'm just going to batten down the hatches and wait it out.

 

[SunnySkies]

All you can do at this point. Watch your bio security and see how it goes.

 

[SunnySkies]

So how is it going?

 

[AgroUrica]

So how is it going?

She was in the market again today selling birds. I decided not to set up and won't do so until she's finished with her group of birds. Too much risk for me.

I had 3 groups of birds here at the house. The oldest group we decided to slaughter a few days early because the birds were not gaining weight rapidly enough and mortality was too high. I don't know if it's the quality of the birds themselves, the feed, the "rainy" season, or something else. Some of the birds had a cough which I treated with an anti-bacterial in their water but didn't see much of an effect.

Group number 2 looks better overall. They're at 33 days today and while not at a level I'd like to see them, don't look as bad as group number 1. I've got a bit more mortality than normal with them too but nearly what group number 1 was experiencing. Some of them too have a cough.

Group number 3 is 19 days old today...300 birds, 3 dead to date. Overall they look really good but right now it seems the magic number is day 28.....that's when the problems start to kick in.

I'm not a vet nor an expert in chickens though I've produced a thousand or so here at the house and have handled a few thousand more in the last 6 months. Everyone I speak to says that it's much more difficult to produce meat birds during our rainy season because they have lots of respiratory problems with the humidity. My oldest birds seem to have something similar to what the locals call "gripe" here which is a basic cold/cough, runny nose, loss of appetite, lethargic, etc. Could that possibly be a form of Newcastle? None have had that weird craning, twisting neck that I saw at the lady's place.

We're going to finish with group 3, clean the place from top to bottom, and start over with 1,000 birds all coming in/going out at the same time. It'll be interesting to see if there's a difference.

Thanks for asking for the update.

 

[SunnySkies]

That could be a mesogenic strain of Newcastle, as that strain causes a nonspecific type of illnesswith higher than normal mortality, coughing and decreased production as the main symptoms, with none of the neurologic signs noted with velogenic strains. The disease does like to pop up at specific times of the year, and perhaps the rainy season there is when people start seeing it, as it does survive well in humidity and warmth (although UV kills it). It would be best if any testing could be done to confirm, but....yeah. I could see how that might be problematic.

All in-all out might be your best bet to stay on top of it, or even plan a vacation during the wet season so you never risk bringing germs into your farm.

Fingers crossed for you!

 

[AgroUrica]

That could be a mesogenic strain of Newcastle, as that strain causes a nonspecific type of illnesswith higher than normal mortality, coughing and decreased production as the main symptoms, with none of the neurologic signs noted with velogenic strains. The disease does like to pop up at specific times of the year, and perhaps the rainy season there is when people start seeing it, as it does survive well in humidity and warmth (although UV kills it). It would be best if any testing could be done to confirm, but....yeah. I could see how that might be problematic.

All in-all out might be your best bet to stay on top of it, or even plan a vacation during the wet season so you never risk bringing germs into your farm.

Fingers crossed for you!

SS, I'm betting that what I'm seeing is a mesogenic strain of Newcastle. I vaccinated my last group of 300 birds for Newcastle when they were 8 days old and, according to instructions, will give them another treatment in 2 days. Will that likely cut down on my mortality and reduce the symptoms? The vaccine we were given was a powder, had to be kept cold, and we were told it was a live virus. From what I understand, it's the same treatment that the large-scale growers use to vaccinate their birds. I didn't notice any of the birds that were vaccinated having a negative reaction to the vaccine though the vet told us that that might be the case.

A couple of technical questions. Is there a simple method of erradicating the mesogenic strain? You mentioned UV, is there some way I could use UV that would help? Also, is the mesogenic strain less "nasty" than the velogenic strain? Perhaps the mortality is the same, but the sight of all those birds flopping around with their twisted necks sure was frightening.

Thanks for all the helpful advice and valuable information SS. I really appreciate it. I'd like to take your advice and take a long vacation but that's just not practical. Our rainy season lasts from May to December so I'm just going to have to learn how to produce these birds the best I can under these conditions. I will though increase the number of birds during the dry season and reduce production for the rainy season. That should help some.

 

[SunnySkies]

It might help. It might not do anything either. But I think the vaccination, if nothing else, might help you feel like you are doing all you can. I would suggest vaccinating all your birds from here on out every single time without fail. You should be able to find a vaccine against mesogenic, and there is some evidence that vaccinating for lentogenic and mesogenic together is better than just lentogenic.

Mesogenic is less "nasty" because the mortality rate is much less than vEND. Velogenic kils 90% or more (!) of all infected birds. The symptoms are way more dramatic withvelogenic, but the toll on production with the less virulent strains is problematic, even though mortality is not nearly as high.

Ways you might be able to eradicate the mEND....
UV light treat your equipment, people entering the houses.
keep everything as dry as possible, as dehydration will kill it.
It is spread via droppings and secretions from the birds, so anything you can do to reduce that will help, such as disposable coveralls, shoe covers and masks on people going between houses.
Shoe dips, to kill germs on shoes
Hand washing.

Exclude wild birds from your houses.

Any equipment going into one house stays there until the birds leave.

Spray your tractor tires, ect, constantly.

Maybe watch when mortality is highest and plan to not have birds at that time. I think your plan to minimize birds during the rainy season is good.