wild birds can they pass anything on to the chickens?

[vonny]

I recently posted enquiring about loosing a couple of birds that seemed to get ill and die recently, I tried a sour crop remedy, the birds have been wormed and demited, their are several gum trees in their coop, big ones, and a mirage of birds seem to inhabit them, wattle birds, crows, the sometimes kookaburras, any way Iwas wondering if any of these or even rats can pass anything on to the hens?

 

[Beekissed]

The government claims they can.

 

[Dar]

if they are coming into your coop area and run area you wanna bet they can.... the wild birds are not going to refrain from pooping just cause they are in your coop or run. If the wild birds are freely mingling with your flock I would say they are at a high risk of transmitting anything.

 

[dawg53]

Dar is absolutely correct. Wild birds can carry and transmit diseases, virusus, all kinds of parasites including tapeworms. Rats are disease vectors also.

 

[Beekissed]

Let's put this another way....if you let your birds outside, covered run or no, they are exposed to wild birds and exposed to rodents even when not outside. The chances your birds will get a disease from a wild animal are pretty slim even with these exposures.

It is far more likely you will have chickens with poor immune systems that succumb to any opportunistic pathogen that comes along....but one could conceivably blame these pathogens on the wild bird population or even rodents.

As most of us have flocks that are exposed to nature, we could all be scared that flock death or illness could be caused by wild birds....but we aren't or we would never let our chickens outside again.

The chances that your chickens are ill due to wild birds are slim, IMO. I've been free ranging birds off and on for nigh on 33 years and never had any vector borne illnesses...actually, no illnesses to date. Wouldn't it be likely that free ranged flocks would be more prone to this happening than a safe and small penned flock?

 

[speckledhen]

I think that is not as common as bringing in disease when someone buys a chicken from someone else. Naturally, you would not want wild birds to be coming into your coop and eating with your chickens. That is asking for trouble.

 

[dawg53]

If you live in a subtropical or tropical environment such as I do, the flock is more suseptable to vector borne diseases etc...it's a proven fact. Eastern equine encephalitis has showed up in horses a little further south from where I live, carried by mosquitos. Direct contact with wild bird feces introduces the lifecycle of tapeworms to your flock. Mosquitos and wild birds infected with fowl pox spread to the flock also. (been there,done that) IB (infectious bronchitis) is brought in by wild birds infected by the virus....mites/lice are brought in by wild birds....the list goes on and on. Prevention of the source (wild birds) in this case would be the solution. Covering your pen with tarp or some other means would prevent droppings from entering your pen. Smaller guage chicken wire would prevent them from flying /hopping into the sides of the pen thru existing chicken wire. I agree with most what Beekissed has stated. However, even healthy chickens fall victim to various diseases, parasites etc... Free range flocks are more suspectable to these problems.

 

[vonny]

Quote:
chickens
I didnt even think about what diseases new chooks may bring, I was given 8 bantams that seem healthy, a lady that breeds chickens said you shouldnt put chickens of different types or ages together any thoughts?

 

[Beekissed]

Many people on here have mixed flocks and they live together nicely. One just has to watch for trouble and act accordingly and there are many tips on here about how to do so.

If this lady is a breeder, she may just have never combined flocks/chickens due to her breeding constraints/plan.

 

[vonny]

Thanks beekissed,

I thought some people did but thought Id see, that does make things easier mixing them in a backyard.