I just received my 2014 Ameraucana Breeders Club 2014 Handbook. I wanted to share some information from an article ("Should I Vaccinate For Laryngotracheitis) written by Paul Smith, an Ameraucana breeder from Gainseville, Texas, and also the ABC Director for this region.
In 2003, he attended a fall show where someone exhibited birds recently vaccinated with a live-virus vaccine for the disease. They shed the virus and his birds became infected.
In the state of Texas, the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) will order the destruction of an entire flock of birds if one has the disease. A few months later, the TAHC ordered the destruction of his entire flock. He slaughtered 158 of them and the TAHC gassed the other 48, all at his expense. Included in this mass killing were three Best of Breeds, one Reserve Best of Breed, many Best of Variety from the previous four Americauna National shows.
He had to start from scratch with eggs that had been disinfected.
If anyone is showing birds, he recommends vaccinating and specifically with the vaccine that doesn't shed. The old style "hot" vaccine (CEO--Chick Embryo Origin) will shed the virus. The newer LT-I-VAX does not shed the virus according to the manufacturer. He closes the article by reminding everyone that there will be birds at the show that are un-vaccinated or vaccinated with the CEO vaccine. He laments that if he had vaccinated his flock, he wouldn't have lost his entire flock of prize-winning birds.
When I wrote to him about vaccinating my birds (he is their breeder), he wrote back that the manufacturer of the vaccine has changed ownership and there is a merger thrown in there to boot, so the vaccine is often hard to come by. I bought the last four vials of the vaccine from the supplier that was recommended to me.
Guess it was so cold they needed a fire! I went out this morning and smelled that smoldering smell coming from the coop...opened it up and their heat lamp had fallen so hard to the floor that it knocked the protectors off and there was a burned hold through the floor!!!
