Topic of the Week - Biosecurity, Quarantine and Infectious Disease Management

[Lady of McCamley]

The thing is, while well intentioned, I almost cringe everytime I hear about someone splinting a splay-leg or 'assisting' a hatched egg... or any number of other interventions. It is a dis-service to the breed to allow things to survive that otherwise would not! This is how we ended up with non-broody hens, chickens that struggle to live past 12 weeks, and roosters that are unable to fend for themselves and protect their flock.

On a side note, while not everyone can have roosters, I will say that it's benefits are awesome. I honestly don't know if I can replace my current alpha roo. He is ambivalent to children, cautious of strangers and ever vigilant in protecting the flock. I have witnessed the regular warning calls, and have even seen him fight off hawks several times this Winter.

I'm no expert/super experienced breeder, but if you don't breed a splay legged chick or a help-out, why wouldn't you help them? Granted, if they were in the wild they would die, but as long as care is taken to not hatch eggs from them, I see no reason not to.
If any of you guys have a good reason why not too, please say so. I'm still learning

You just said what I was about to say...

It's been my experience that the majority of eggs that need assistance, and chicks that need tending to legs and/or toes, are chicks that have been artificially incubated, not those incubated under hens.

Really good input, and I would like to add my personal experience and thought on this as my perspective has changed over the years.

Why would you not want to assist/treat a struggling chick or bird especially if it is a pet?

Unfortunately the weak chick usually grows up to be a weaker bird in the flock who often becomes the vector of illness since their immune system is usually lower because of either poor genetics or poor development. This plays out in many ways from being the first to catch and share illness to parasites.

Therefore, I have learned to take a harder nosed approach to struggling chicks and birds. My situation is different in that I broody hatch, and I breed for flock sustainability and egg production, but I know what people speak of...I also have a "tender heart" and enough medical savvy to intervene....but then learned to regret it.

Here is an example of why I have learned to regret intervention. I once messed up a hatch of coveted shipped eggs (which probably had messed up air cells though I checked) trying to assist a spindly failure to thrive chick (fell away from nest and was unable to get up on its own back to mom so I replaced and kept replacing) and then messed momma up on the nest with a sibling chick pipping....my intervention in trying to get the failure chick (probably genetically weak) to stick with momma caused a shrink wrapped situation with the pipping chick...which of course led me to intervene again...which of course led to omphalitis due to its extended hatch time before I figured it out..which of course led to artificial brooding and antibiotics for those chicks...and then smaller chicks to the naturally hatched siblings...which was likely symptoms of latent bacterial infection or abdominal weakness...thus lowered immunity. These chicks never did as well and became the "mite magnets" for the flock as hens that year no matter how much I treated.

I played that scenario out with numerous coveted hatches until I realized I was not doing any favors to my saved birds or my flock. Now that I hatch my own eggs from my own flock, I absolutely will not assist nor keep an animal that is not productive and thriving in my environment (assuming good husbandry.... food/water/cleanliness) as I do not want to propagate those weaker genes and have a constantly spiraling downward flock.

Even self inflicted poor hatching experiences can set a bird up to lifelong weaker immunity as bacterial infection can weaken the whole intestinal fortress through that initial contact with the environment (yolk sac/abdominal cavity).

I'm about to cull a coveted bird (one of the last adults purchased) because of her breed but she's developed a tumor which is something I don't want to breed forward. Kills me to have to do this as I really wanted her egg color, her feather color genetics, and she is a sweet bird, but that type of genetics is not something I want to forward and her weakening condition (she gets around fine, but the tumor is growing to an alarming size) will eventually cause her to succumb to some disease/parasite which she will inflict on the rest of the flock as she becomes the petri dish.

My thoughts.
LofMc

 

[lazy gardener]

Quote: Well stated, you make a very valid counter point to mine.

 

[feedman77]

Well I will be the odd man out.

I don't really quarrantine. I have a pen along the side of my chicken run. That I put any new birds I buy from swaps or auctions. Basically to see interactions and how they get used to my current flock.

Any birds that seem sick or I'll I will keep away from my birds in isolation. Watch it's symptoms and if not better in a day or 2 will cull it.

Kinda follow survival of the fittest model.

Now I free range my flock. I have 5 acres around my house for them to roam. Pasture and fencerows.

Outside of that is several hundred acres of crop ground. Across the field about a 1/4 mile is a lake that holds 20 to 50 thousand migrating waterfowl each fall. The fields and my pasture can be full of them. I have watched my turkeys play chase the geese back and forth in the field. My birds also go to the lake to mill around some days.

My fencerows are a travel way for deer, coons, possums, weasel, fox, coyote, and an otter. I also had a tom and 2 hens visit my turkeys for a few days last spring.

If someone wants to visit my flock I let them. No special boots or clothes.

My barns have been known to have rats, cats, mice, and owls in them. Eagles that follow the geese have been in the trees in the fencerows. Also migrating flocks of doves.

So with all the wildlife around my farm I could not follow the biosecurity measures some on here follow without keeping my chickens and turkeys in a plastic bubble.

I'm probably the only one here that does my birds like this. But I still care for my birds and they are treated well. They are for meat and eggs and I get plenty of both.

But for those that have all the security steps and makes you feel better.

 

[bobbi-j]

Well I will be the odd man out.

I don't really quarrantine. I have a pen along the side of my chicken run. That I put any new birds I buy from swaps or auctions. Basically to see interactions and how they get used to my current flock.

Any birds that seem sick or I'll I will keep away from my birds in isolation. Watch it's symptoms and if not better in a day or 2 will cull it.

Kinda follow survival of the fittest model.

Now I free range my flock. I have 5 acres around my house for them to roam. Pasture and fencerows.

Outside of that is several hundred acres of crop ground. Across the field about a 1/4 mile is a lake that holds 20 to 50 thousand migrating waterfowl each fall. The fields and my pasture can be full of them. I have watched my turkeys play chase the geese back and forth in the field. My birds also go to the lake to mill around some days.

My fencerows are a travel way for deer, coons, possums, weasel, fox, coyote, and an otter. I also had a tom and 2 hens visit my turkeys for a few days last spring.

If someone wants to visit my flock I let them. No special boots or clothes.

My barns have been known to have rats, cats, mice, and owls in them. Eagles that follow the geese have been in the trees in the fencerows. Also migrating flocks of doves.

So with all the wildlife around my farm I could not follow the biosecurity measures some on here follow without keeping my chickens and turkeys in a plastic bubble.

I'm probably the only one here that does my birds like this. But I still care for my birds and they are treated well. They are for meat and eggs and I get plenty of both.

But for those that have all the security steps and makes you feel better.

You're not alone. As I stated before, on the rare occasion I have brought outside birds into my flock, I haven't quarantined either. But I also don't have an expensive breeding flock, and while I'd kick myself to town and back if I brought something in that killed my flock, I wouldn't be an emotional wreck. I'd just be mad at myself. I don't have the facilities to do the proper quarantine. We also have migrating fowl, eagles, and hawks of all kinds. The sparrows spent the winter in the coop with my chickens. My chickens free range so are exposed to all the wild birds anyway. I don't even know what Marek's, mycoplasma (or whatever that is) look like in a flock. Maybe it's because the nearest neighbor with chickens is 3 miles away?

 

[Folly's place]

There's no way to manage the wild birds, we all have them. Mites and lice are their most frequent contributions to our chickens! I try to control what I can, and there's never been an outside chicken so special that it had to move in with my flock. I think that being careful pays off. Mary

 

[Beekissed]

Deleted voluntarily by BK.



Edited by Staff

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

Quarantine of new birds

I don't. My flock's immune systems are strong enough to withstand new pathogens being introduced or they are not, period. So far, they have been. One cannot protect the chickens from anything and everything that comes along by trying to keep them separate from it and, if a bird is merely a carrier but shows no symptoms, then quarantine is useless no matter how long it's conducted. Best to build good immune systems from the beginning...it's your baseline defense against disease. Without that, all other steps are worthless.

Showing Birds

Only did it once but had no worries about the immune defenses of my birds, so took them to see the show, brought them back home to the flock. I'm sure they had stories to tell, but that was pretty much it.

Precautions about visitors

None

How to handle sick/diseased birds in my flock.

In my personal flocks, I've never had any illness or disease, so haven't had to handle anything like that. A few times I've had old hens suffering with lash eggs and they were dispatched. With birds that come from the outside and symptoms of disease/illness are noted, they are dispatched as soon as symptoms are noticed...why keep weak and compromised birds in the flock? If they are prone to getting ill, they are too weak to live here. That's only happened a handful of times over 40 yrs of keeping birds, so it's not a significant problem.

Best way to handle outbreaks of serious disease?

Prevention! Since I've never had any outbreaks of serious disease...or any disease....in all these many years, I think the prevention thing is worthy of passing along. It's not just good luck...it takes a commitment to a certain methodology that starts at hatch...before that even, in the parent birds if you are hatching your own. It starts from day one building immune systems that are developing antibodies to all the pathogens in their environment by early exposure to the flock, to free range, and to any new stock that come in on the truck.

It's a yearly culling for the best of the best to carry on genetics for the flock, weeding out retired layers, poor layers, and any other bird that doesn't thrive well on the free range, feed and care the rest are thriving upon.

It's a commitment towards never giving vaccines, broad spectrum antibiotics, or chemical dewormers...no matter what. Those things are a crutch for poor immune systems, poor genetics and poor environments. It's a short term solution for an ongoing problem, so it will have to be repeated in the future...in other words, it's never really a fix for the core problem.

As the old saying goes and is still true to this day, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

I love your advice, no drugs keep only the ones that thrive, build a good immune system and let nature take its course!

Gary

 

[feedman77]

Quarantine of new birds

I don't.  My flock's immune systems are strong enough to withstand new pathogens being introduced or they are not, period.  So far, they have been.  One cannot protect the chickens from anything and everything that comes along by trying to keep them separate from it and, if a bird is merely a carrier but shows no symptoms, then quarantine is useless no matter how long it's conducted.  Best to build good immune systems from the beginning...it's your baseline defense against disease.  Without that, all other steps are worthless. 

Showing Birds

Only did it once but had no worries about the immune defenses of my birds, so took them to see the show, brought them back home to the flock.  I'm sure they had stories to tell, but that was pretty much it. 

Precautions about visitors

None

How to handle sick/diseased birds in my flock. 

In my personal flocks, I've never had any illness or disease, so haven't had to handle anything like that.  A few times I've had old hens suffering with lash eggs and they were dispatched.  With birds that come from the outside and symptoms of disease/illness are noted, they are dispatched as soon as symptoms are noticed...why keep weak and compromised birds in the flock?   If they are prone to getting ill, they are too weak to live here. That's only happened a handful of times over 40 yrs of keeping birds, so it's not a significant problem. 

Best way to handle outbreaks of serious disease? 

Prevention!   Since I've never had any outbreaks of serious disease...or any disease....in all these many years, I think the prevention thing is worthy of passing along.  It's not just good luck...it takes a commitment to a certain methodology that starts at hatch...before that even, in the parent birds if you are hatching your own.  It starts from day one building immune systems that are developing antibodies to all the pathogens in their environment by early exposure to the flock, to free range, and to any new stock that come in on the truck.  

It's a yearly culling for the best of the best to carry on genetics for the flock, weeding out retired layers, poor layers, and any other bird that doesn't thrive well on the free range, feed and care the rest are thriving upon. 

It's a commitment towards never giving vaccines, broad spectrum antibiotics, or chemical dewormers...no matter what.  Those things are a crutch for poor immune systems, poor genetics and poor environments.  It's a short term solution for an ongoing problem, so it will have to be repeated in the future...in other words, it's never really a fix for the core problem.

 
As the old saying goes and is still true to this day, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. 

Almost precisely the way I do my own flock.

Just stated a lot more eloquently than I could ever put it.

Thanks

 

[Cluckcluck1215]

- (How) do you quarantine new birds before adding them to the flock?
NEVER EVER will I bring my birds to show, they are way to Importent to me then a stupid bird show I think.
- (How) do you manage show birds and showing?
Like I said above, I will never bring my chickens to shows
- Do you take precautions when having (human) visitors to your poultry yard?
Yes, if they want to come inside my pen, I MAKE them, under all CERCOMSTANCES were a pair of boots of MY FAMLIYs that IS ONLY used to,go into the Chicken Yard
- How do you handle sick/diseased birds in your flock?
I hav s never had a "SICK"Bird, I've had Frostbite, sudden outbursts of molting in cold and a 24 hour bug.But what I do is imidiantly seperat them from the flock and hop onto BYC and look it up, IF I don't know how to treat it
- What is the best way to handle outbreaks of serious disease(s) such as Mareks and prevent spread and recurring cases on your property?
I have never had a Mareks or any other awful thing like that(there i jinxed myself)But, what I would do is imidiantly seprarte the infected birds, and then I would put my other birds in my garage, and tear down my entire coop and start over with a new coop.I would NEVER cull my birds unless there is NO chance of recovering, Yes it seems stupid and a bad idea, but I do NOT want to have to cull my hole flock if they are going to live.

 

[KittyKat3756]

I only hatch eggs now.

I used to wash any new birds and dry them indoors, then quarantine for 2 months outdoors.

Not especially: we live in a city and people who visit don't have access to other poultry more often than not. Hands get washed and people are not allowed inside the coop runs.

Quarantine and figure out what's wrong before treating. Usually any sick birds come indoors. There has never been anything contagious though. The worst we've had was a bird that survived a fox attack.

I've never heard of anyone having had Mareks locally, but we have bird flu to worry about instead. The 3.5 month government enforced quarantine ended yesterday and closest outbreak was about 50 miles away where 22000 chickens were put down as a result. Dead wild birds were found even closer. The quarantine is still in place on the other side of the city as it works based on proximity to problem areas now.

The method for prevention was to keep birds physically separated from wild birds and with a roof over their heads. Unfortunately, not everyone did this, which encouraged the spread of disease because birds congregate in places where food is readily available.