The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club > Housing, Health & Hatching
Over 2 decades of experience
Paul:
Vaccination Program
Time has gotten away! I can hardly believe its been almost two years since I have shared on this thread. Plan to do better in the future.
Summer is an excellent time to start an annual vaccination program for your flock. As the temps get high, the interest in purchasing birds gets low. Its too hot to ship birds and the incubators are shut down, so ceasing all movement of birds doesn’t disrupt much.
We vaccinate our entire flock for LT when the last retained hatch of our hatching season is four weeks of age. Laryngotracheitis is a viral respiratory disease that infects chickens (normally 14 weeks or older) pheasants, peacocks, chickens and turkeys. Each state animal health agency has its own rules dealing with LT. Texas’s rules are , if you get LT in your flock, your flock will be euthanized. Pennsylvania and Georgia use to require that the birds must be vaccinated before they can be shown. We had the misfortune of losing out flock in 2004. The Texas Animal Health Commission worked with us to allow us to save hatching eggs so we could retain our genetics before the entire flock was destroyed. The large commercial flocks do not want to have to vaccinate for LT, so the plan is to keep LT out of the state.
There are two kinds of vaccine for LT. The only one that should be used in a breeding show flock is LT-IVAX which is a highly modified live virus vaccine that will not cause the vaccinated birds to be carriers of LT. It is intended to be an eye drop, but should be dropped into the bird’s nostrils so it will not cause eye infections. The instructions say it may cause eye infections, remove the doubt; it will cause eye problems if dropped into the eye.
A second round of LT vaccination must be administered six weeks later. The entire flock is vaccinated again. A few weeks after the first round of LT vaccinations, the entire flock is vaccinated for fowl pox. Fowl Pox is caused by a virus which is carried by mosquitoes. A poultry person doesn’t have to go to a show or anything to get fowl pox. The mosquitoes will bring it to your birds. White sores normally will appear on the birds’ combs and waddles (if they have waddles), and red parts of their face.
Pox vaccinations are administered with a double needle applicator which comes with the vaccine. The applicator is dipped into the vaccine which charges both needles. Spread the birds wing. Remove fluff feather from the underside of the web (about the size of a dime). Then push the needles through the birds web missing any large blood vessels, bones and the wing muscles. Continue the same process until all birds are vaccinated. The chicks need to be at least 8 weeks old for the pox vaccine that we use. Some pox vaccines allow 6 week old chicks to be vaccinated.
A test can be preformed to see if mosquitoes are in your area. Put about 2 inches of water in a 5 gallon bucket, then place a gallon jug inside the bucket. Place the 5 gallon bucket with the water and jug in the area you want tested, in the early afternoon or evening. The next morning remove the gallon jug and watch for mosquitoes to fly out of the 5 gallon bucket. I have performed this experiment with rain water, well water and chlorinated community water with very little to no noticeable difference in the number of mosquitoes in each bucket.
There are several diseases which infect poultry. Many diseases have vaccines to prevent them from infecting the birds. Each state has its own rules dealing with each disease. Texas doesn’t allow several of the vaccines to be used. Check with your state’s animal health agency for information on which diseases your flock should be vaccinated for protection in your area.
I use to have the attitude-”Why vaccinate if you don’t have a problem?” The answer is, so you will not have a problem. The old saying “an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure” comes to be true when dealing with poultry diseases.”
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