Culled All Our Poultry ~ Mycoplasma

It is my belief that I contacted this disease this spring when I brought in a bunch of chicks from else where.  After I had the chicks for about 10 days, I noticed a very sick little cochin chick who had very puffy gummy eyes.  I thought it was an eye infection so, I tried to clear it up with antibiotic eye drops.  Well, the eye drops did nothing to clear it up.  Soon I noticed the same symptoms in some of my other chicks.  Then chicks started dying.  I lost 11 of the shipped cochins first to this, and it also spread to my own chicks that I hatched which were very active and healthy until the shipped birds were added.  It also spread to my meat birds and to my turkey poults.

Their symptoms were:

Eye and Nasal Discharge

Sneezing

Coughing

Wet gurgly sounding breathing

Lack of appetite

Swelling of the sinuses and around the eyes.

And tissue swelling and red in the corners of the eyes.

I thought I would include some pictures to show what some of the chicks looked like.

In this chick you can see how the face is swollen.  It's all puffy about the eyes and sinuses.  In some cases the eyes are sticky and glued shut so that they can not see.

The chick stands all hunched up and ill looking.  Eyes only partially open.  Not showing much interest in eating or drinking.  Chicks cough and sneeze.

You can see this chick has been rubbing it's eyes on it's shoulders.  You could also see nasal discharge.

I'd been medicating this chick, but even so you can see that the corners of it's eyes are inflamed, red and visible.

The Turkeys had lots of swelling around the eyes and sinuses.  They eyes also were gummy with discharge around them.

In some of the eyes you can see how watery they are.  Also bubbles are present in the eyes.

You can see just how much they eyes are swollen under them.  Some of them had swelling in one or both eyes.  Because of the shine, wet looking discharge the turkeys pecked at it hence the wound above the beak. (probably spreading it further...)

After loosing several of the cochins, some of my own hatched and some turkeys, I sent in 2 turkeys and 3 chicks to be tested.  These birds had to be freshly culled and sent with icepacks to the Animal Health in Abottsford to have a postmortem and tests done on them.  To cull them I used the cervical dislocation method, which is fairly quick and bloodless, since they want the bodies intact.  So I culled, packed and sent off the birds.

A day or two after they received the birds I received a message that there was Mycoplasma present.  I spoke with the vet over the phone and he confirmed that Mycoplasma was indeed present in our Turkeys.  He hadn't gotten the test results back from my chicks that I sent in yet.  I had been medicating the chicks so he said that it would be hard to detect it in them since the symptoms had been cleared up.  It was agreed that since my turkeys had it for sure, and they had been in contact with my entire flock older chickens, chicks and guinea fowl that everything was exposed to it and it would be best to cull it all, clean house and start over in about a month or so (I decided to wait a year before starting again.)

Mycoplasma is a contagious respiratory disease that poultry can get.  It's a chronic' disease, and even though the birds can and most times do survive this, they remain carriers and can pass it on to other birds.  They can pass this on through coughing, sneezing, dust, eggs and semen.  Incubation period for it is 10 - 21.  This disease is fairly common apperently.  But as someone who breeds and sells poultry, I felt that it would be unfair of me to keep my birds and risk infecting anyone elses.  

You can read about Mycoplasma here:  

http://www.poultrydiseases.net/online/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=26&limit=1&limitstart=0

So last week I culled all my poultry.  This was an awful thing to do.  I still feel horrible when I think on it.  It's one thing to cull a badly injured or dying bird that you know is suffering horribly.  But it's an entirely differnt thing top pick up a bird bird that looks perfectly healthy and end it's life.  I know that even though they look healthy they could be carrying mycoplasma and pass it on to anyother poultry that I bring here.  But it doesn't make it any easier.  Many of these birds are ones I have raised since they were either eggs or day old chicks.  Most of the older ones were pets.  I was very attached.  

I also used Cervical dislocation to do this.  How I did it was to take the bird,  Hold it to calm it.  Grasp the feet in one hand, support the body in the other and lower the bird so that it is upside down with it's chest and neck laying on the ground before you.  Place a broom handle across the back of the neck behind the head, step on the broom handle quickly one foot on either side of the head and quickly and smoothy pull up on the feet.  Pull up until you feel the neck give.  This dislocates the neck, and ruptures the blood vessels in the neck.  It is supposed to be painless since it also severs the spinal cord (but who's to say just what the bird feels).  I couldn't bear to see the birds flop around so I held them as they passed.  After all these were my pets and it broke my heart to do each one.  (See, I still tear up when I think of it.)

After I finished culling, I made a big  pile of brush and dry fire wood and got the fire going good and hot, then burnt almost all of the chickens, except for my daughters 2 favorites.  My daughter wanted to bury them, so I felt that this would be a good way to perhaps bring her some closure too.  We dug a hole by a cedar tree, lined the grave in ferns, placed the little hen and rooster in and covered them in more ferns.  RIP little Millie and Little Peep.

After I thought I was pretty much done culling and burning, I was going to go into the house, but thought I would do one last egg check to see if any were missed earlier (and I guess just to go into the empty hen house and say a silent good bye).  While I was standing in there, I heard a cluck.  Yes, a cluck coming from outside in the pen.  I couldn't believe it and almost thought I was hearing things.  I went out to the pen, and out from behind some glass windows leaned up comes one last Blue Laced Red Wyandotte hen.  It was almost like one of those bad dreams when you think that it can't get any worse, and then it does.  She comes running over to me.  Oh my!  Here I was thinking that I was finished killing and the worst was done and over with and out comes this last bird.  So I picked her up. Sat on a bucket.  Held her and had a serious cry.  I never imagined in my life that I would have to kill anything.  Let alone chickens which I love.  It was so tempting to keep her, sitting there with my face buried in her soft feathers.   But it needed to be done.  I did it, and probably that one last one is what stands out most in my mind now.

Anyways, all of my birds are gone.  Chickens, Turkeys and Guinea Fowl.  The yard is strangely quiet when you go out side.  We've had a few neighbors stop by and comment on the lack of birds about.  When offered condolences, I really don't know what to say.  

I have shoveled out the coops and am working on scrapping them down, then I will disinfect them.  I need to pick up one those car wash brushes that you can attach to a garden hose to help me scrub down things, and garden sprayer to spay disinfectant.  And so now the clean up begins.

When I do start over, I will try and just bring in hatching eggs and treat them with an egg dip of Tylan, which is supposed to kill any mycoplasma present in the eggs.  I will  be very careful with any new chicks brought in, keeping them separate  for at least 4 weeks to be sure they are healthy.

I have also bought a copy of The Chicken Health Handbook by Gail Damerow so I can look things up if anything shows it's self.

If nothing else this spring I have done a lot of research and learned quite a bit about this disease and about bio-security.  

Millie pigging out on cookies 

Sick Chick Update.

Well, I've been avoiding writing about what's going on here with the chick situation.

To tell you the truth I have been so disheartened about it and am just having a real hard time.

My Chicks are still sick.  Several have died.  Some on their own, and some I've had to cull because they were so ill.  

I'm not exactly sure what is wrong with them, but I suspect Mycoplasma.  They are showing several of the symptoms of it.  And so are the Turkeys.

Their symptoms are:

Eye and Nasal Discharge

Sneezing

Coughing

Wet gurgly sounding breathing

Lack of appetite

Swelling of the sinuses and around the eyes.

And tissue swelling and red in the corners of the eyes.

It's really been quite scary.  Actually I've been terrified.

If it is Mycoplasma, it is quite contagious and because I had moved the meat birds and turkey's into the grow out pens in the main coops, all of the rest of my poultry have been exposed to it.  Even if they survived this intitial outbreak of it, they would remain carriers for the rest of their lives and can pass it on to other birds.

I have had them on Tylan and on Oxytera-a which is an antibiotic as well.  Their symptoms are somewhat better in some of them, but it seems that most days there is at least one death.  Lately it's been the meat birds, one by one.  A few days ago we had to put some turkeys down because the facial swelling was so bad.

I have decided to send some in for testing to see just what I am dealing with.

If it comes back that this is indeed what I do have, my husband and I have decided to cull our flocks.  This isn't an easy decision.  It's hard, hard, hard.  I've hardly been able to sleep and I have no appetite. I cry.  Lots.  But I think that this is what we have to do this time.  

I want to one day be able to sell hatching eggs, chicks and chickens and don't want to have to worry that I am going to pass this on to someone else.  I can't have that on my conscience.  There is a fear in me that friends or family who have poultry will come and visit me and bring this home with them on their shoes or clothing.  

From what I hear, I don't absolutely have to cull my flock.  I could just treat them as they have flair ups.  From what I understand, this illness is quite common and many flocks have it, but people don't know what they are dealing with.  The chances are good that I will actually end up coming into contact with this again.

But this time I will deal with it by culling.  Another reason we have decided to to this is so that we can continue to get and raise our Turkeys.  Turkeys are quite susceptible to this disease, as I have found out.  In fact, from what I hear, if you have Mycoplasma present in your flock, you should not raise turkeys.  We want to have our turkeys.  One day I would love to have some year round pet turkeys, and to do this we have to get rid of this disease.

Last week I phoned Dr. Cox of the Agricultural department.  He suspects that it is Mycoplasma too.  Especially when I described the turkeys to him.

So today, I went and spent some time with the chicks watching and listening to see who looked and sounded the worst to send in to be tested.  Not an easy thing to do, picking out baby chicks and turkeys that you know you will have to kill first thing in the morning.  I'm not looking forward to it at all.

But I guess knowing what I am dealing with will bring a certain piece of mind.  Knowing if by culling that I am making the right decision.

If it comes to culling, I can't imagine what it will be like to not have anymore chickens, turkey's or guinea fowl for a while.  The wait time after disinfecting for mycoplasma is about 3 weeks, which isn't that long.  But my husband would like to wait for a year before I get anymore birds.  

For a few days there, I could hardly go out and look at my birds.  I fed, watered, and collected eggs as quickly as I could, because I felt so guilty about having to cull them.  Most of my main flock I have had as chicks or hatched from eggs.  I interact daily with them.  They are more then just chickens to me.  The majority of them are pets.  My chickens over the years have given me great joy, comfort and entertainment. They are my escape on a hard day when I need quiet time.  It may sound weird but on a bad day, I go and stand in my chicken house in the evening and just watch and listen to the chickens.  It's comforting. 

Anyways, tomorrow is the day to send them away and then the long wait to get the results....  

I think it will be hard to sleep tonight....

Chick update

I thought I would give an update on how the chicks are doing.

Well, They aren't doing so hot.  It seems that some how we have come in contact with an illness.  It also seems to be contagious, because most of my chicks are now coughing, sneezing, gurgly breathing, have puffy eyes and are all huddled under the heat lights.  I've had several deaths too.

This has really been stressing me out and I have been so worried.

When it first started, there were some puffy eyes, and I assumed that my turkey poults who were in with the chicks were pecking eyes.  There was also some sneezing, and I put his off to that maybe they had gotten a chill when one of the 3 heat lights got unplugged.

So I moved the turkeys and plugged back in the heat light.  But puffy eyes were still happening, and the sneezing turned to coughing and gurgling.  I put them on Electrolytes and Vitamins, and in draft free area's.

The other morning I had 3 chicks die.  I sort of panicked, because I've never dealt with illness with this many chicks before.

The chicks seem to have come down with Mycroplasma.  I don't know for sure, because I haven't had them tested, but they have the symptoms of it.   Both the Chicks (both heritage and meat birds) and the Turkey Poults have it.

I was really hoping that I could get away without the use of antibiotics.  Especially because of the meat birds, some of which we planned to butcher in 2 weeks.  But with them this ill, and all the risk of loosing so many I put them on Tylan last night.

When a friend of mine heard of my plight, she rushed all the way out here with some medication.  I can hardly beleive the kindness and generosity of this lady.  I am so very grateful!  I hope one day I can return the favour (Only I would never wish this on anyone.)

So now that they are on the medication, I feel a ray of hope!  So far today we haven't had any die, so that's just awesome!

And now we wait to see if the Tylan kicks in and things turn around.

Chick Photo Shoot!

I decided to do a photo shoot of some of my chicks last week.

The Barred Cochins were really working it!

The Turkeys didn't know what to think!

Typical long legged model...

The Meat Birds making the most of their cute faze.

Blue Laced Red Wyandotte.  How could you know love that face?

The Blue Laced Red Wyandottes were relaxed.

Taking a little down time.

Maybe a little too relaxed?

The Rhode Island Red thought they were above such nonsense!

The Frizzle X Polish thought they weren't paid enough to show their faces...

Gettin' Ready For Meat Birds and Turkeys!

Yes, today I am getting ready for the big day tomorrow!

Tomorrow we are bringing home 25 day old turkeys, 60 day old meat birds and 10 day old Rhode Island Reds.  That's a total of 95 chicks in one day!  (Not counting the 24 I already have and the 30 Cochins I have coming next week!)  I'm secretly excited about it for now.  I'm sure the excitement will wear off fairly quickly once they get bigger, lose that cute fuzziness, the dander and smell gets to me.

Last week I built a nice Brooder Box.  It's 8 feet by 4 feet wide and the sides are about 2 feet high.  I divided off a section with a removable piece so I can have a smaller part for other chicks.  I lined the bottom in Vinyl to make for easy cleaning.  Then spread shavings on top of that for litter.

I use red heat lights, to help prevent the chicks from picking on each other.

I have hung a heat light about 18 inches up off the floor, for warmth.  The water is up on a pizza box out of the shavings, and I put the food on a piece of vynle flooring to help keep some of the shavings out of it (same reason I put the water up).  When the chicks are bigger I'll put the food up on something as well.

Here you can see the chicks that I hatched last week in the small section of the brooder.

I know that soon they will outgrow the lovely little brooder I built,  and I'm desperately hoping against all hope that the snow is gone by the time I want these out of the basement.  (Fat chance of that.  I think the snow plans on staying around for a while!)

Anyways, there you have it.  There's my brooder set up in my basement.  I also have a brooder box in my chicken house, and some grow out pens as well.  I'll have to get around to posting pictures of those.