To vaccinate or not to vaccinate

[KCNC06]

Alrighty folks, I'm perplexed yet again.

After a rough week of desperately trying to nurse my favorite EE hen back to health...and failing...I started reading about vaccines. Everyone's best guess is that this hen died from something other than a preventable disease since none of her symptoms matched up with any disease I've been able to find. (Other than maybe an impacted crop, but I highly doubt that was the cause, but won't get into that here.)

I've come up with quite a few questions regarding vaccinations, so please be patient with me!

Normally I don't go for vaccinations that aren't absolutely necessary. For example, I've never gotten a flu vaccine and never plan to. However, it seems like most of the diseases that you can (theoretically) vaccinate your chickens against are hard to diagnose and treat if your birds do somehow get infected. We don't have a large flock and I don't plan to breed or show them, but they are part of the family so I want to keep them as healthy as I can! I do keep their coop and pen clean, they're only cooped up at night and their pen is quite large (I'd guess at least 5,600 sq feet), plus they're free to jump the fence and free-range if they choose to. We live about 2 miles from a lake in Central NC, and like most lakes there's quite a bit of wetlands around it and wild birds that live in the wetlands. We have also seen possums forging for food in the chicken yard at night, and I've seen squirrels and wild birds eating out of the feeder at the same time as the chickens during the day. I'd hate for one of these creatures to pass a preventable disease along to my chickens. Other than covering the pen (which isn't really possible considering how large it is and that they free-range anyway) I wouldn't have any idea how to keep these creatures from sharing the chicken food and pooing out germs all over the place. Poo happens, it's not like I can keep them from coming in contact with it!!

So, here's what I'm wondering. Maybe I should make a list.

1 - What are your thoughts on vaccinating. Is it safe or just unreasonably expensive. (I found this link that talks about why even small flocks should be vaccinated: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps030)

2 - Does anyone know of a way to vaccinate a small flock without buying the bottled vaccine for just your flock? It seems silly to buy 1,000 doses of vaccine for fewer than 10 chickens.

3 - If your chickens were not vaccinated for all possible diseases as chicks, is it safe/practical to vaccinate them as adults?

That's all I can think of for questions right now.
Thanks for your input!!

 

[lilchick]

The more common diseases like Mereks should be done when purchased from the hatchery. If you raise your own chicks you can purchase the vaccine from Jeffers farm supplies. I also vaccinate for fowl pox. If you have even one bird with it time to order vaccine and do all of the flock cause it spreads quickly. Also you can get them vaccinated for coccidious.
Some of the more exotic diseases you should not worry as much about as long as you buy from hatcheries or breeders with good reputations.
I do not like to vaccinate but to see one die from a preventable disease can be heartbreaking too.

 

[gritsar]

My advice would be to check with your local agricultural extension agent. He or she can tell you what diseases, if any, are prevelant in your area.
I chose to not vaccinate.

 

[KCNC06]

Yeah, like I said, I'm not a fan of vaccines. But since the chickens live outside and are exposed to all kinds of wild life, they can't tell me if they're getting sick, and even if they could tell me it doesn't seem like it's easy to find a vet that treats chickens! Especially if you just have a really small backyard flock. The general consensus is that the hen we just lost died from a non-pathogen, so I don't really think we have to worry too much about the rest of the flock catching anything.

2 of the 6 hens we have now were from McMurray's hatchery. The other 4 were from 2 different local breeders. I honestly don't know what they were vaccinated against. I'm planning on ordering chicks from MyPetChicken.com in a couple weeks. From what I've seen, it looks like they only vaccinate against Mereks, and I was planning on choosing that vaccine for them. The IFAS link that I had been looking at said that chicks can't be shipped if they're vaccinated for Newcastle's Disease at hatching.

Thanks for the suggestion about Jeffers supply! Their prices on the vaccines are a LOT cheaper than what I saw on McMurray's hatchery's website!!

 

[gritsar]

Jefferspet is a great company to deal with. I get all our pet supplies from them. I can order on a Monday and have my order on Wednesday; always packed well.

 

[Keene's coop]

i just posted that same question too. lokk for it. post topic is "mericks vaccination". you should be able to get your answer ther. for me, i am vaccinating. hope you can find it.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

back in '98 I lost most of my flock of about 200 chickens along with most of the other chickens in this town. Fowl pox got blamed, but I don't know if that was a fact. Since then I vaccinate, but I shoot them up with the works. I don't know animal meds as well as people meds, so I just trust the experts and get a variety of different vaccines. Last summer I did my animals. They were vaccinated with 3 different vaccines, which provented about 6 different diseases total. It cost me 87 dollars, including shipping. I felt it was money well spent. If I could go back to '98, you could bet I would have done it then. You only have to walk through your yard once with a wheelbarrow, picking up your dead hens, to make a decision like that.

 

[KCNC06]

Quote:
See, that's EXACTLY what I'm concerned about. I don't have 200 chickens and I'm pretty sure my husband would flip out if I ended up with that many (I bet my neighbors would too!) but I don't handle death well. And even though I'm 99.99% sure that no vaccine or medicine could have prevented the death of my favorite hen earlier this week, it would be nice to be able to avoid having them die from something preventable in the future. Standing in the woods holding a dead chicken while your husband digs a grave so you can have a chicken funeral while you're recovering from some freak cold (it was NOT the flu despite what everyone's telling me about not running high fevers with a cold - I've never had the flu and I'm sticking with that claim!

) is not fun.

My poor girls are probably getting tired of getting man-handled and give me a mighty strange look every time I whip my head around and say "Did I just hear you sneeze?! You better not be sneezing! You're not allowed to get sick!" Yes, I'm a freak. Whatever. It makes life fun.