[funkyfish]

Hi! I was just wondering if anyone routinely vaccinates chickens, and what do you vaccinate against?

We have always had family hens, a small flock of old/rare breeds. My husband and I are lucky enough to have a land share of an acre to do as we please. We decided on rare breed checkens, large veg patch and a couple of sheep.

We obtained a couple of exbatts from a friend of a friend who had had them a couple of months but didn't want them. A couple of weeks after that we got our lovely Indian Game cockerel. Then the sneezing started. Put them straight onto antibiotics, but lost one of the hens.

It looks like IB so we have decided to cull the others, disinfect and move the electric netting and start again in a couple weeks with a couple of likely broody hens and get hatching eggs in the spring to improve biosecurity.

I'm now keen to vaccinate any new hens/chicks, have never done this before, but have never had any health problems (we've known about anyway) either. But I am wondering what else to vaccinate against, as many vaccines are live and might just create problems or mask problems. We are hoping to breed Indian Game, Cream Legbar and Marsh Daises, With Game crosses for the table. I don't want to risk loosing rare breed birds unnecessarily.

Dose anyone else vaccinate for IB or anything else?

[Barrett]

Funky fish, i have around 20 chickens at the moment and have enquired at my local vet about vaccinations now some of my hens I bought from a well known poultry keeper so they were vaccinated, I have been hatching my own for a little while now and the problem is the smallest batch of vaccination that the vet could get for me was 500 and I don't have 500 chickens and never likely to have, so due to the quantity issue I do not vaccinate my hens though would love to as I have lost some in the past from sneezing etc..

[funkyfish]

Thank you for your reply,
I have a large farm practice near buy with a large poultry department so was going to enquire if I could buy a small amount from them from a written prescription from my vet- but have not confirmed it's possible... I should know better about amounts of vaccines etc being a vetnurse!
Sorry about lack of punctuation etc, this phone is a nightmare to type on!

[doganjo]

I only have two hens out of my 11 that are not ex-batt or ex-commercial free range, and they are normally vaccinated.  And to be honest these are the two that give me most aggro - jumping the fence and finding themselves being chased by the dogs and in their jaws(thank goodness they are soft mouthed)  So I'm going to elt them take their chances as tehy always do! 

[funkyfish]

I'm gutted bout my 3 the two ex- batts would have been vaccinated but my IG cockerel I travelled a hour and a half for, and paid over a tenner for, infected them all. Sutch a same as he is stunning and a sweetheart !
Will just have to start again.

[Barrett]

Funkyfish, we all learn by mistakes, I bought a batch of hens over the internet and when they arrived they hardly had any feathers didn't isolate them put them straight in with my others which was silly I know, then my eggs starting being pecked etc.. so I had to ring them all, so wasted money buying them, then loosing eggs then spending a whole day ringing necks, wouldn't do it again.

[Rich/Jan]

Battery hens are vaccinated for most things as it is in their owners interest to do so as they have such large numbers of birds.  It is invariably true though that when ex-batts are mixed with non-vaccinated birds they spread quite a few problems - the sneezes, eye-problems etc is usually down to micoplasm.  Tylan injectable is brilliant for treating this but is only legally given to treat cattle - powdered form of Tylan is effective but of course an injection is much quicker acting.   Intervet used to do smaller doses (250) - but disposing of the rest is not that easy as some cannot just be put down the sink - and some have a very short (minutes) shelf life when opened. 

[funkyfish]

Thanks every one for your advice and suggestions!!

Am reasonably sure it was IB but mucoplasm was a close 2nd thought... gave them an antibiotic (forget its name!) from poultry vet (who is also a friend), they responded so didn't try Tylan.

Am excited to be starting again, have the offer of buying a very nice sounding IG cockerel form Sylvia. Just need a lady friend to go with him of any sort, until can plan for chicks/hatching eggs in the spring.

Have done research into IB vacc, and it seems Nobilis is out of stock at the moment... So will prob try and buy in as few birds as necessary, use hatching eggs instead and take bio-secuity more seriously- quarantine for 2 weeks instead of 1.

Our chicken empire (lol) is costing us a fortune at the moment as our land share is 25miles away, so fuel costs are not fun (nor the 5am start)! At least we are also sharing animal chores with my lovely friend who has let us have an acre and a bit, so we only do all the animals 3ish days a week. Roll on spring so we can have eggs, meat and veg!

[Victorian Farmer]

Best bet get stock that have been vaccinated