lwheelr
Lovin' The Homestead
So we ordered a batch of 30 assorted Bantam Cochins from a hatchery which shall remain nameless. We started feeding them a natural feed mix, and found that some of them just would not eat a variety of foods - they'd stick solely to the mash. So we lost a few simply because they would not take advantage of what was offered. We noticed a strong correlation between colors and this tendency - the harder to breed colors seemed to die of this more than the common colors.
Then we ordered another batch of chicks - 80 of them. 20 each of Bantam Americaunas, Buff Orpingtons, Brown Leghorns, and Standard Americaunas. One Bantam Americauna was DOA. They had sent extras of the Americaunas and the Buff Orpingtons.
Three or four days after we got them, the Cochins started dying at a faster rate. One every couple of days. Some of them slowed way down in growth, and some stopped feathering out - funny looking because they were loosing their baby fuzz but had nothing to replace it.
The loss rates on the new chicks were also much higher than had been with the Cochins.
Then when the little chicks were three weeks old, they started dropping like flies - we were losing them at a rate of 2 or more a day. They'd fall over and not be able to get back up, and the other chicks would trample them. Some would fall over, have a seizure, and die immediately. If we removed the ones that were having trouble standing, and isolated them, they'd stand back up pretty soon, and then just huddle and shiver. About half recovered, the other half lingered and died.
They also had watery mucousy diarrhea. This was evident because they started looking like they'd gotten wet and dried badly, and by puddles of it on the floor, and from clumped feathers around their vent (no impacted poop, just wet looking clumped feathers.
I looked up the symptoms, and the only disease that fit the entire pattern for incubation period, symptom patterns, and age related symptom patterns, was Infections Bursal Disease. Nasty stuff.
This disease has no known treatment or cure, it is a virus, and very contagious. Immunity from chicken to chick CAN pass, but only if the mother has the immunity.
If a chick gets it before three weeks of age, there are NO SYMPTOMS. Some of the chicks at that age will just mysteriously die, and the death rates are not that high. But the disease will completely destroy their immune system, leaving them immune compromised permanently. That's right - a magnet for every tiny thing that comes along, with no defense against anything, and not suitable for breeding purposes (because they would not be able to pass immunities to their chicks).
If they get it between three and eight weeks of age, they have specific symptoms, consistent with those observed in our chicks. And the disease will still destroy their immune system.
If they get it when they are older, they'll have only minimal symptoms - loss of appetite for a few days, and a reduction in egg laying. It will still compromise their immune system, to varying degrees, though not as severely as it will with younger chickens. It still makes them unsuitable for breeding.
Now, there IS an immunization for this - and it is fairly effective. The risks are low.
We now had not only 80 young chicks dying in droves, but our older chicks were also dying from a disease obviously brought in by the chicks (the older chicks started dying exactly after the incubation period from when the new chicks arrived). Our older chickens also got sick, and almost undoubtedly also contracted the disease.
The immune destruction is what is so bad about this. They can be compromised to the point where they never really do develop an immunity even to IBD themselves - so they just linger on and on and one by one they die. The few that do recover won't pass that immunity on and may catch it again the next time around. You can possibly get some of them grown to the point where you can butcher them, but even that is difficult - so you end up wasting a lot of feed even trying, on chicks that just keep dying.
I contacted the hatchery and outlined the entire situation. I explained what the symptoms were, what the disease pattern was in our chicks and chickens, and explained that not only had they sent chicks infected with a highly contagious disease, resulting in high losses, but that those that did survive would not be suitable for the purpose for which we bought them. Additionally, they had infected all of our other chickens (41 of them), and they were now unsuitable for breeding also. Because of this one error, we have now effectively lost our entire flock, and are set back by many months on our goals. Financially, the harm goes far beyond the money we paid for those chicks.
They replied with an offer to replace the chicks. I declined, stating that it would do no good to send more chicks now, they'd just get infected too. That we'd have to wait for the disease to run its course, then disinfect the brooders before we could have any more chicks in.
I explained that I wanted to know if they would begin an inoculation program for this disease. Then then got stuffy about it.
They told me that the chicks could not POSSIBLY have this disease, since they are an NPIP certified facility which has been certified disease free. It was obvious that the guy was simply saying what he always says, because this was an illogical thing to say unless you are ignorant yourself, or just hoping that your customer knows less than you do and is willing to be taken in by misdirection.
Now, NPIP ONLY REQUIRES testing for Pullorum to be certified. They do not require testing for anything else. You can OPTIONALLY test for several other diseases.
IBD is NOT one of the diseases that NPIP even monitors, and they do not provide testing for it.
Further, NPIP testing happens only once a year - and as we know, disease can strike at any time - certification even a week old is outdated and useless, even when they DO test or monitor the disease in question AND the facility in question has opted for that testing. So it is largely meaningless for most diseases, and COMPLETELY meaningless for IBD. (Not that NPIP is not useful - because if you DO have an unknown disease, you can at least access testing to identify the ones they do test for.)
I pointed out that NPIP certification was totally irrelevant to the issue of whether they had IBD in their flocks.
They replied that since there IS no test for IBD, there was no way I could know that our chickens did have it since (he said) many other diseases have similar symptoms (despite the fact that there is not another disease with identical symptoms, AND that having symptoms appear in the new chicks at exactly three weeks of age is the classic marker for this disease and no other). (The tone of the letters changed here - and it took more than 24 hours to come up with this reply, so I'm sure he spent the time talking to someone else about how to answer me.)
The only definitive test is a Post Mortem exam for specific damage internally, so it CAN be confirmed, though not through blood testing. Vets routinely diagnose based on symptoms alone.
Then they said that THEIR flocks did not have this disease and there was no need for them to take any action since they didn't have it in their flocks. In spite of the fact that they just stated there IS no test for it, and they cannot know that.
They said that since they did not have the disease in their flocks, that they did not want to "introduce" it by immunizing! Despite the fact that this is an untreatable disease, that there is compelling evidence that they do indeed have it in their flocks, and despite the fact that it does such harm, and is so contagious that it will compromise pretty much all chickens in a receiving facility or farm. The immunization is safe enough that the risk of "introducing" it to a flock is very low, and if it does happen that one actually gets symptoms from the vaccination, it is isolated to just that animal, and the others that have been inoculated are not at risk.
They then offered to refund on the order, and have since done so.
I was very dismayed at their ignorance - that instead of checking to see if they DID have it in their flocks (it has to be in one of the ones that was sent to us), and instead of seriously looking at the issues, they just said it couldn't be a problem, so they did not need to do anything about it.
This disease is on the rise, partly because of the stupidity of large hatcheries that simply refuse to acknowledge that it might be wise to inoculate, and, when informed that their facilities might be contaminated, go into "damage control" mode to deny all responsibility for fear of negative press over the issue.
If you are selling hatching eggs, chicks, or live chickens, PLEASE look into immunizing for this. The harm to a customer if you don't can be catastrophic. You can wipe out a lot more than the investment from a single order of chicks.
Anyway, I'm passing on this story, in case it is of any value to any of you.
Then we ordered another batch of chicks - 80 of them. 20 each of Bantam Americaunas, Buff Orpingtons, Brown Leghorns, and Standard Americaunas. One Bantam Americauna was DOA. They had sent extras of the Americaunas and the Buff Orpingtons.
Three or four days after we got them, the Cochins started dying at a faster rate. One every couple of days. Some of them slowed way down in growth, and some stopped feathering out - funny looking because they were loosing their baby fuzz but had nothing to replace it.
The loss rates on the new chicks were also much higher than had been with the Cochins.
Then when the little chicks were three weeks old, they started dropping like flies - we were losing them at a rate of 2 or more a day. They'd fall over and not be able to get back up, and the other chicks would trample them. Some would fall over, have a seizure, and die immediately. If we removed the ones that were having trouble standing, and isolated them, they'd stand back up pretty soon, and then just huddle and shiver. About half recovered, the other half lingered and died.
They also had watery mucousy diarrhea. This was evident because they started looking like they'd gotten wet and dried badly, and by puddles of it on the floor, and from clumped feathers around their vent (no impacted poop, just wet looking clumped feathers.
I looked up the symptoms, and the only disease that fit the entire pattern for incubation period, symptom patterns, and age related symptom patterns, was Infections Bursal Disease. Nasty stuff.
This disease has no known treatment or cure, it is a virus, and very contagious. Immunity from chicken to chick CAN pass, but only if the mother has the immunity.
If a chick gets it before three weeks of age, there are NO SYMPTOMS. Some of the chicks at that age will just mysteriously die, and the death rates are not that high. But the disease will completely destroy their immune system, leaving them immune compromised permanently. That's right - a magnet for every tiny thing that comes along, with no defense against anything, and not suitable for breeding purposes (because they would not be able to pass immunities to their chicks).
If they get it between three and eight weeks of age, they have specific symptoms, consistent with those observed in our chicks. And the disease will still destroy their immune system.
If they get it when they are older, they'll have only minimal symptoms - loss of appetite for a few days, and a reduction in egg laying. It will still compromise their immune system, to varying degrees, though not as severely as it will with younger chickens. It still makes them unsuitable for breeding.
Now, there IS an immunization for this - and it is fairly effective. The risks are low.
We now had not only 80 young chicks dying in droves, but our older chicks were also dying from a disease obviously brought in by the chicks (the older chicks started dying exactly after the incubation period from when the new chicks arrived). Our older chickens also got sick, and almost undoubtedly also contracted the disease.
The immune destruction is what is so bad about this. They can be compromised to the point where they never really do develop an immunity even to IBD themselves - so they just linger on and on and one by one they die. The few that do recover won't pass that immunity on and may catch it again the next time around. You can possibly get some of them grown to the point where you can butcher them, but even that is difficult - so you end up wasting a lot of feed even trying, on chicks that just keep dying.
I contacted the hatchery and outlined the entire situation. I explained what the symptoms were, what the disease pattern was in our chicks and chickens, and explained that not only had they sent chicks infected with a highly contagious disease, resulting in high losses, but that those that did survive would not be suitable for the purpose for which we bought them. Additionally, they had infected all of our other chickens (41 of them), and they were now unsuitable for breeding also. Because of this one error, we have now effectively lost our entire flock, and are set back by many months on our goals. Financially, the harm goes far beyond the money we paid for those chicks.
They replied with an offer to replace the chicks. I declined, stating that it would do no good to send more chicks now, they'd just get infected too. That we'd have to wait for the disease to run its course, then disinfect the brooders before we could have any more chicks in.
I explained that I wanted to know if they would begin an inoculation program for this disease. Then then got stuffy about it.
They told me that the chicks could not POSSIBLY have this disease, since they are an NPIP certified facility which has been certified disease free. It was obvious that the guy was simply saying what he always says, because this was an illogical thing to say unless you are ignorant yourself, or just hoping that your customer knows less than you do and is willing to be taken in by misdirection.
Now, NPIP ONLY REQUIRES testing for Pullorum to be certified. They do not require testing for anything else. You can OPTIONALLY test for several other diseases.
IBD is NOT one of the diseases that NPIP even monitors, and they do not provide testing for it.
Further, NPIP testing happens only once a year - and as we know, disease can strike at any time - certification even a week old is outdated and useless, even when they DO test or monitor the disease in question AND the facility in question has opted for that testing. So it is largely meaningless for most diseases, and COMPLETELY meaningless for IBD. (Not that NPIP is not useful - because if you DO have an unknown disease, you can at least access testing to identify the ones they do test for.)
I pointed out that NPIP certification was totally irrelevant to the issue of whether they had IBD in their flocks.
They replied that since there IS no test for IBD, there was no way I could know that our chickens did have it since (he said) many other diseases have similar symptoms (despite the fact that there is not another disease with identical symptoms, AND that having symptoms appear in the new chicks at exactly three weeks of age is the classic marker for this disease and no other). (The tone of the letters changed here - and it took more than 24 hours to come up with this reply, so I'm sure he spent the time talking to someone else about how to answer me.)
The only definitive test is a Post Mortem exam for specific damage internally, so it CAN be confirmed, though not through blood testing. Vets routinely diagnose based on symptoms alone.
Then they said that THEIR flocks did not have this disease and there was no need for them to take any action since they didn't have it in their flocks. In spite of the fact that they just stated there IS no test for it, and they cannot know that.
They said that since they did not have the disease in their flocks, that they did not want to "introduce" it by immunizing! Despite the fact that this is an untreatable disease, that there is compelling evidence that they do indeed have it in their flocks, and despite the fact that it does such harm, and is so contagious that it will compromise pretty much all chickens in a receiving facility or farm. The immunization is safe enough that the risk of "introducing" it to a flock is very low, and if it does happen that one actually gets symptoms from the vaccination, it is isolated to just that animal, and the others that have been inoculated are not at risk.
They then offered to refund on the order, and have since done so.
I was very dismayed at their ignorance - that instead of checking to see if they DID have it in their flocks (it has to be in one of the ones that was sent to us), and instead of seriously looking at the issues, they just said it couldn't be a problem, so they did not need to do anything about it.
This disease is on the rise, partly because of the stupidity of large hatcheries that simply refuse to acknowledge that it might be wise to inoculate, and, when informed that their facilities might be contaminated, go into "damage control" mode to deny all responsibility for fear of negative press over the issue.
If you are selling hatching eggs, chicks, or live chickens, PLEASE look into immunizing for this. The harm to a customer if you don't can be catastrophic. You can wipe out a lot more than the investment from a single order of chicks.
Anyway, I'm passing on this story, in case it is of any value to any of you.
