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Fowl Pox Vaccinations

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Paul:
I know of several fanciers who thought they had pox when actually they had Laryngotracheitis (LT).  The two chicken diseases have some common symptoms but also some different ones.  Pox is carried by mosquitos.  The birds will develop white sore spots on their combs and wattles.  That is not a symptom of LT.  LT & Pox causes eye problems which are similar but different for each disease.  If the birds have a runny nose, sling their head from side to side, breath by gasping for air through their beak and stretch neck forward and upward while trying to breath you can bet that it is LT and not Pox.  LT is highly contagious and can be carried on a person clothes.
If you are not in an area that has mosquitoes you probably have LT.

We vaccinate for pox only once a year (July 4th week end).  All the new hatch chicks are 6 weeks or older by then.  Every bird gets their turn of being stabbed through the wing web.  This does a very good job of protecting them for a full year.  We are in mosquito country.  Nearly every year, pox effects birds in our area, but we haven\'t had a case of Pox since we started vaccinating over 10 years ago.  The vaccine is only good for about a hour after it is mixed.  One bottle of vaccine is suppose to be able to vaccinate 1,000 birds.  We usually only get about 100-200 vaccinated before the hour is up.

The LT vaccine is an eye drop that may be given in the nose, as dropping it in the eye will cause some to have eye infections.  It must be given at 4 weeks and again at 10 weeks of age the first year.  Then the next year and each following year, they will need two vaccinations, six weeks apart.

Both LT and Pox vaccines are a live virus.  They must be given at different times several days apart and must be kept away from non-vaccinated birds for at least 35 days.  The July 4 vaccinations work well for us as there is very little interest in purchasing chickens in our extreme heat.  We keep all birds here from July 4 to August 15, so no non-vaccinated birds are at risk.

verycherry:
I\'m definately in mosquito country!  I\'m in South Central Arkansas, and the mosquitoes were unbelievable down at the chicken coop late this summer after all the rain we got from the hurricanes.

Almost all of the birds have sores on their wattles, combs and eyes.  The sores were white around a black center or scab.

Only a few have had one of their eyes seal shut, but all of those that did are open now.  

I\'ve only had two birds have labored breathing, which I read was the wet form.  One of those was the very first to show signs, the sores and gunky eyes, and you could hear it breathing.  

The other one didn\'t have many sores on her comb, but was the only one gasping for air sort of like you mentioned, but both are breathing fine as of last night.  Now I\'m wondering if she might have had something else (even more scared now), but she sure seems ok now.

verycherry:
I just found this on AvianWeb.com...

There are two forms of the disease.

The first is spread by biting insects (especially mosquitoes) and wound contamination and causes lesions on the comb, wattles, and beak. Birds affected by this form usually recover within a few weeks.
 
The second form is spread by inhalation of the virus and causes a diphtheritic membrane to form in the mouth, pharynx, larynx, and sometimes the trachea. The prognosis for this form is poor.

I\'m going to assume (hope) for now that this chicken had the second form mentioned, and pray it\'s not LT.  She was the only one that bad off, and it looks like she\'s pulled through, but I\'m still watching her.

verycherry:
Well, I still DEFINATELY want some pure Ameraucana stock, but I guess now I\'m limited to chickens that have been vaccinated.

Just in case anyone else is interested, I found this additional information, which goes into how both forms differ and how they\'re spread.

From http://www.canadianpoultry.ca/fowl_pox.htm

When the virus is transmitted from one bird to another through direct contact, such as pecking, or through mosquito bites, the resulting clinical expression is the dry form of the disease. In the dry form, Fowl Pox is characterized by the presence of specific lesions on the skin. These vary from raised, reddened lesions through a pustular form to a dry, scabbed lesion. The clinical effect on the flock with this form of the disease is minimal, but feed consumption and production can be slightly lowered.

When the virus is transmitted by flies, which are attracted to wet surfaces such as the eye, or by aerosol, the wet form can result. In the wet form, the lesions are seen on mucosal surfaces, such as the conjunctiva of the eye, nasal passages, oral and pharyngeal mucosal, and the mucosal of the trachea. The wet form is more severe clinically, causing interference with eating or breathing and resulting in death due to asphyxiation when the trachea is affected.


I wonder if they can get both forms at the same time?...or one right after the other?  I know she had a few sores on her comb as well, but I guess those could have been superficial and not even related.  They could have even resulted from being picked on.

Paul:
It definately sounds like a major case of pox and not LT.  The majority of the flock should be fine in a few weeks.  Any birds that form a scab over an eye, need it removed, or they will go blind in that eye.  We had one hen do that, when we had a battle with pox about 10 years ago with the EEL\'s.

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