Thank you for that! I wish I could shut my brain off sometimes but such is ADD. I can never hear cool it a little bit in a kind way enough... 😅😆 I grew up with chickens but I didn't manage them, I was a kid. And I've had a handful of egg laying hens for 15 plus years. But this is my first time...
I feel I'm totally a vigilant chicken mama and flock manager and I'm constantly trying to learn but I'm also not rich or a scientist... So I don't know how to grow and make sure it's responsible. And the more research I do the more I realize this is a spectrum. Or more like, a Pandora's box...
I know but then there's that one that can go through the egg. I guess my point is how do you really know if you have a healthy flock or a contaminated flock with great immune systems month to month? Other than testing? Maybe every chicken keeper wonders this🤣 just want to be responsible with...
My quarantine coop is small and movable. And I have honestly only needed to use it when introducing a rooster, so three times. I hit a spot in the woods just beyond the yard and rake all of the leaves into a low barrier around it. But two died in there. Afterwards I soaked the ground all around...
Not to mention a couple years ago when I decided to add a rooster to my flock I brought home two different roosters who presented with respiratory symptoms and died both within a week. Now they were in quarantine and none of my other chickens got sick. But this feather dust blowing in the wind...
I actually did have several buff orpingtons for about a month last year I decided I did not want to waste food and space on as well as one of my hens I hatched to a friend of a friend who already had a flock. They were in between chick and pullet age. And they came back months later for a...
Well nothing presently. Just reading about all of these diseases and what deadly, ridiculously contagious creepers they can be. So far I've hatched chickens to keep but if I were to sell fertile eggs or chicks (or even thin a few young layers) I would want to know I wasnt risking other people's...
I love Bragg's! Also the Nzymes products! Awesome holistic products for immune strength and development! Haven't heard of aquasol I'll have to check that out!
Very true. And then I wonder if vaccinations are counterproductive if they don't actually prevent them from getting it. Seems a herd immunity of sorts would be easier achieved without them...
Well I'm just wondering, say for instance wild birds, are the ones that appear healthy really just asymptomatic? Then you think about herd immunity and wonder what's more likely, or even what's better. The immunity of a landrace or the possibility of untouched chickens
I remember a few years back catching a little red house Finch near our bird feeder, pretty easily cuz he couldn't seem to see, and I took him to our wildlife center. Appeared to be some sort of respiratory issue. I washed and bleached the bird feeder. But I'm thinking what if one like that...
I know! But then you worry about selling fertile eggs or chicks. My first six I got from a hatchery so I imagine they were vaccinated. The rest I hatched myself or got from a farm a county over. She hatches her own but has gotten several specific breeds by having eggs mailed. This leaves endless...
I mean what if you had your flock tested and everybody was good but two months later wild birds bring it in. The more you read about this stuff and things that can be passed through the egg and things that can live in the ground for years or in the birds with no symptoms the more it feels...
I mean of course it's obvious when a chicken is sick. But you hear about these diseases they could carry and that are so contagious and can be carried by wild birds and so on and so on. So what if all your chickens appear perfectly healthy but have something? Seems like having a whole flock...