West Niles Virus?

[Natasha09]

Do chickens get West Niles Virus?

 

[jessupfamily]

Yes! We lost a few bantams to it about 4 years ago. Purdue extension confirmed this. We were in SW Indiana in Posey Co. at the time.

 

[Natasha09]

Did they have any symptoms? I am just curious, even though it is early in the year for that virus to appear (I am in lower Michigan) I lost a hen recently and I can't figure out what she had. I live near a swamp with a lot of mosquitoes.

 

[jessupfamily]

The symptoms were vague. They started to just loose interest in being around the other chickens and they seemed really lazy. (That was the first couple of days.) Then they wouldn't come out of the coop in the morning. By the third or fourth day we found them dead in the coop, lying on their side out in the floor area. We didn't know what to think so we called the extension agency. They can do a test on them to verify.
Ours had no other symptoms.