Diseases

DISEASES
AVOIDING DISEASED CHICKENS
· Clean out BEFORE necessary.
· Disinfect house regularly.
· Dose chickens in louse and mite powder every month. *
· sufficient ventilation in the hen house is important.
· Take all food that has not been eaten out of the coop every day.
· Have birds vaccinated against incurable diseases if vaccine exists.
· Feed well balanced diet.
· Keep feed in a cool dry place in a closed bin.
· Prevent your birds getting stressed.
· Do not keep growers together with adults.
· Leave new birds in quarantine and get droppings and/or blood tested
* Some mite powders really work and last up to six weeks.
OUR STORY
Our Dutch bantams came from a good breeder and our silkies and gold laced
came from Elizabeth Sivewright and our silver laced came from Wiltshire
chickens all was well until we found one of the gold laced’s was a unwanted
cockerel so we went to Ulingswick to get another hen but Uli, as we called
the hen for obvious reasons, made strange hawking noises and we only
realized how serious this could be when she had spread it to all the other
chickens so we had their blood tested which confirmed our fear – they had
mycoplasma (chronic respiratory disease) a cruel disorder which rarely kills
and when it does its victims are mostly young birds I read that birds can be
vaccinated preventively but the vet said that there is no vaccine that
properly works….………………………………………………………………………………
Once your birds have it, it can only be suppressed by antibiotics sometimes
even this will not work if your birds have gone too far then killing is all
that will put them out their misery…
………………………………………………………………………………………….
Before, I said we will be restocked in 2010 but that is not to be, because
we cant bear to get rid of the chickens so we will not be breeding anymore.