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.