Whole flock infected

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While I agree with you, I will never improve my flock without getting better breeding stock than I currently have. Hatcheries haven't resulted in great stock.

I will figure on keeping any new bird with a sacrificial home-pullet in the garage for 30 days. If there is an illness, it should show in one of them during that time. I can designate one DS for the garage, and another for the rest of the flock in the shed.

Last year after the 4-H show we put the returning birds on separate pasture, wormed and louse/mite treated both flocks and then threw a sacrificial-pullet in with the returners for a month. We saw no signs of illness and re-integrated everyone. Still seem to be ok, but I confess with young people helping with chores, we could miss illnesses if they occur and recover fast enough.

So there is no test to discover if your birds are carrying anything? I'd hate to give/sell a bird and have it infect another flock. I find it hard to believe someone would intentionally do that to another poultry keeper, but they might not know either?

hmm.png
is right.
 
Smoky73

Forgive my novice questions here but i dont get it....
If you take a bird to a show.... do you first inoculate them with everything under the sun so they cant catch anything? how do you know the showbird wont infect your other birds once home if they are exposed to something?
Ive read that you shouldnt take your parent stock to a show, and the show bird should never be returned to the flock... that makes no sense to me if you had to cull every blue ribbon bird... what the point of having a winning bird?

I get that the shows require NPIP, but in the case of lets say the MG how do you not infect your whole flock if no signs show for up to 21 days?

all my chicks would have gotten it from the 5 month birds i put in my garage with them. Not in the same cage but in the same air.
No one showed signs till the cold snap and a hawk attack that all happened last week. I just counted days, so we had signs of illness at 31 days and thats the chicks and my 8 monthers.

so if i I wanted to show, culled all my birds and started over in the spring, just so i could have the silkies to breed,show sell ETC. what says i wont just start all of this over again because i go to a show?
Whats the point of going to a show to see all the wonderful birds, if when you go home you risk infecting your own flock? change you clothes,bleach your shoes before entering your own coop? Is that enough?

Do show birds always just get stuck by themselves after a show?

Do i not go to my friends flock ever again? because whatever im wearing could infect her birds?
 
We have "chicken shoes" at our house. No other shoes go in the pens. This is as much for a clean house as a clean pen.

When visiting a friend with chickens, yes, I wash the shoes when we get home. I try not to handle the birds, if I do, I shower when I get home.

County Fair week is tough. It ss a small 4-H show and tests for Pullorium (sp?) but nothing else. We change and shower everytime we come back from the fair. We assume there will at least be mites/lice and might be something worse.

We currently do not show anywhere else.

It is very tough, isn't it? I love looking at everyone else's birds. So far we have been lucky and have had no disease occurances (knock on wood)

We try very hard here, but I suspect we will have a disease occurence someday. As we pasture, there is just too much chance they will get something from the environment, and other 4-Hers may have carriers and not know it.

I hope your birds are just alergic to the change of seasons and everything turns out ok for your flock!
 
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I do not mind novice questions, I love to mentor people if I can

You just don't know what other people's birds in the cage next to them have been exposed too so its a risk you have to take. I NEVER innoculate any of my birds for anything, I used to do Mareks vaccine on chicks, but have stopped doing that even. The idea is what you SHOULD do, is bring your birds to a show, if you want, disinfect the cage area with Oxine and put your birds in. There is usually a vet there check ing for sick or bug infested birds. There is ALWAYS a chance that birds can be exposed to life threatening diseases that would require extensive culling, but knowing what has shown up in your state helps a lot. Here, the vets do the standard Pullorum/Typhoid testing and Avian Influenza. They check for AI at the shows and check for bugs.
Anyway, you SHOULD isolate your birds for a few weeks after the show to be sure they did not bring home anything contagious. Usually what I do though is I medicate with Tylan and use vitamins for a week prior and during the show and for about a week after as well just in case.

There are some vaccines that are live viruses and you need to be careful to get killed viruses if thats what you want to do.

I have never heard you should not take your parent birds to a show or to keep them seperate forever after the show and I do not know of anyone around here who does that and we have some big time Master Breeders and people who show all around the country with their birds.
Also NPIP actually has nothing to do with MS, MG or any of those, at least not in my state it is strictly P/T and AI. any of the Mycoplasmas are additional and cost. Like I said, the State vet here has said everyones birds are exposed to Mycoplasmas at one time or another, no matter if they show symptoms or not. If your bird gets a respiratory infection, chances are its some form of a Mycoplasma. And yes, you were told correctly, birds tend to get sick when the weather changes, and that is in the spring and the fall. I get a few sick ones every year usually either spring, fall or both, but, if treated right away, usually no losses.

Just try to do the best Bio-security you can, meaning visiting your friends flocks and all. Change your clothes and shows when you go home, never wear the same thing you do your chicken chores in to a friends house with chickens. I always wear different shoes and change clothes when I get home.

All this being said, I have been showing for 5 years, and go to swaps several times a year to sell birds, and my friends houses with birds, and I never get a real bad problem. never caught anything from a show. Usually show birds are so babied and cared for that they are the healthiest birds you can be around. But I am sure I have had Mycoplasma as well a time or two and as long as my birds are in good health when they go to shows its not an issue. Sure they get sick but, thats the way it is...nothing worth isolation for eternity.
 
After going litterly thru Hell after being told MG was my problem I treated chicks daily with Deneguard to 6 weeks and then 3 days a month till 6 mo. Tylan imediatly when any new symptom appeared.
Then the State recomended culling any and all sick birds. O tollarance. No other way to change the cycle. I did that. If a sick bird did come thru it would become a carrier and infect others all it's life. I also sent eggs to Purdue University and after testing they were after all MG and MS clear. Backyard flocks are no longer 2-6 hens and the bigger numbers make them as vunerable as most hatcheries but they are required to vacinate for all kinds of diseses. O tolerance is the only way to reverse the cycle. And Jeffors has the MG dead virus vacine I did use it before I had the eggs tested but it made no differance. It is 1000 doses and runs $90. but needs to be used within a few days.
 
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I have to agree with JoAnn here.We use muck boots when out in the chicken yard and they stay on the back porch with a Clorox washing.I use another pair of boots if I know I'm going to another flocker's home.I had a similar experience when I first started with some of my bantams.A couple friends of mine had lots of birds.One of them I found only bought and sold them for profit with no clue of the birds history.The other has wayyy too many birds and not in the best of an area.Very tight quarters,wet and funky.They had visited my house a couple of times and I didn't think anything of it.Then I had a bird come up sick.I quarantined it and treated it.Seemed fine after a couple days.Then over the next couple weeks it ran through my whole flock.I happened to go over to both of their houses shortly after this began and was horrified.One of their's birds were all stowed up and sick.The other one had started having birds die all over the place.Ever since I've seen this I no longer go to their homes and they are not allowed over here.(Mainly due to one of them making a remark about me having sick birds and acting like his wasn't and always saying his stuff was better.That nobody had anything like his.He had the best.) Basically I told him the hell off and said he needed to practice what he preached.I culled out everything I had.Restarted.And had the state come in and test all of my new birds and be sure I was good to go. Now to me an ounce of prevention is EVERYTHING.
 
Morning!

Im not interesting in culling my whole flock, Im gonna send the swabs out to MSU and have them tested for the MG and if thats the case, well then i guess for now they stay here till they are gone, I will just rock with a all in all out policy. The girls arnt just birds here, my whole family enjoys them and not every one, but some have names and they have been raised from chicks by my kids.

I might just see if my friend wants to send in a swab of hers, cuz if i got it, i pretty much know where it came from,and she has birds from the same farm. Even if they arent showing any symtoms, they would be carriers correct?
now hindsight is 20/20 i should of run like the wind as soon as i saw what i saw. instead i was stupid and brought the darn birds home.

Im gonna get myself a pair of muck boots today, no other shoes out to the coop. i will also designate a coat that doesnt go to another chicken house. Im gonna order some Oxine AH to spray with. i want to be able to mist my floor mats in my truck or the bottom of shoes after ive been to the feed store,Tractor Supply,other chicken friends or shows . I will spend my time with this flock learning,adjusting my practices and enjoying. Obviously i have much much more to learn.

They will be my prototype:)

Noelg
 

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