Vaccinations

[Steven L]

I live in Rhea county TN and I am getting 2 chickens. Does anyone know what vaccines my chickens will need?

 

[ChocolateMouse]

"Need"? None. Chickens don't have mandatory vaccinations like dogs. All chicken vaccines are optional.

You can get vaccines for certain diseases like Mareks or Newcastle. But please bear in mind that many of these vaccines are non-sterilizing. This means that it prevents the SYMPTOMS of the condition, but not the actual infection itself. For example, the Mareks vaccine may be 90% effective. If you have ten chickens vaccinated who are exposed to Mareks, one will still die and the other nine will be Mareks carriers for life and any unvaccinated chickens then brought into the flock will become infected from your seemingly healthy Mareks chickens and die as well. In fact a vaccinated infected chicken is likely to spread the disease MORE than an infected unvaccinated chicken, not less.

This is not true of any human vaccines or most dog/cat vaccines. Compare this to something like the MMR vaccine or the rabies vaccine, in those cases the immune response to meeting the virus is to kill it entirely and leave no trace of it behind. Most vaccines result in the disease being completly non communicable. This is not the case for some chicken vaccines.

So if you chose to vaccine or not, and many do chose to vaccinate, do your research carefully and use appropriate biosecurity.

 

[Steven L]

Thank you for the reply!