[Kiran]

Do those of you who breed your own chickens and ducks vaccinate them? I've got 12 chichen eggs in an incubator at the moment, 9 are showing potential signs of life, 3 have dark green shells which I can't candle through. We also know our duck eggs are fertilised as we donated some to a friend to test for his flock.

Anyway, we were wondering how necessary chick vaccination is, if so who do you get to do it or do you DIY?  If you DIY where do you get it from and are you trained?

At the moment we are only hatching for ourselves but I can see my wife getting addicted to having chicks and ducklings about and in that case we may need to sell them on.

Thanks

[Richmond]

No, we don't vaccinate and never have.

Keeping birds in a healthy stress free environment and feeding a good quality diet will go a long way to avoiding disease. Keep on top of parasites and practice good biosecurity.

Only use strong parent birds who have been healthy their whole lives. Ideally use eggs from hens in their second year of lay as eggs are usually larger therefore there is more nutrient (yolk) for the embryo.

Avoid buying in hatching eggs if you have not seen the parent stock.

Avoid in-breeding where possible.

Also, have a plan for surplus males. 50% of each hatch will be male. Be prepared to despatch and eat them as unless they are very good quality pure breeds you are unlikely to sell or rehome them. Tbh It is easier to cull them as chicks as soon as you can sex them rather than waiting till they are all grown up and you have become attached. Cockerels eat far more than pullets and rearing them for 6 months till they are big and fighting with siblings costs more than you think. This goes for ducks too.

[Kiran]

Thank you, that's really useful and pretty much inline with my way of thinking regarding having a healty flock being more beneficial than vaccinating.

[twizzel]

Chicken vaccines are normally only available on a big commercial scale, I don’t know any small producers that vaccinate. That said, any birds I buy are always vaccinated for salmonellla and mareks, after I bought an unvaccinated bunch of pullets a few years ago and all died within a week of mareks. Since then I’ve totally destocked and started again, but am wary where I buy in from now.

[Kiran]

Thank you both for your input, very much appreciated.

Does anyone on TAS produce chickens/ducks on a small ish scale that can tell me what they do please?

[Richmond]

What do you want to know?

[Kiran]

So far my wife seems to be really enjoying the process of hatching chicks. We're also able to produce our own fertilised duck eggs from strong birds so if she did decide to hatch more, we'd need to move on ones that we didn't want to keep. It sounds like nobody would buy unvacinated chicks or ducklings so does that leave the only option being use them as meat birds, or is there a way to get them vaccinated to sell on, either by us or is it something vet's would do at a reasonable price etc. For example if a vet was going to charge £20/bird there would be no way it would be viable to have them done for sale

[chrismahon]

I wouldn't buy any stock that was 'vaccinated' because they may well affect the birds that aren't, as happened to us leaving us with 2 weeks of very sick birds and a £200 vet bill.


Vaccinations are not injections as such, but an immunisation programme administered by air spray or into the drinking water. The birds are deliberately infected with a live virus of the weakest strain in the infection group. It is a multi-stage process (a dozen or so) on chicks between 1 and 6 weeks old. They are therefore infected and capable of transmitting the diseases. Usually only applied to large batches of hybrids.


Here in France they don't do this to my knowledge. But a vaccination for Newcastle disease is mandatory for showing. It is a dead virus injection which must be repeated every year.

[Richmond]

Hatching is addictive, and that is where you need to be careful. 100 x day old chicks are very cute and don't take up much space. Roll on 3 or 4 months and it's a different story.

If you want to hatch to sell, then start with good examples of a pure breed and go from there. Not many people want to buy cross breeds, and have a plan for all the males as I mentioned earlier.

There is no need to vaccinate your stock. As Chris says it's only really done in commercial hatcheries where they are producing 1000s of chicks.

I used to breed  - mainly Welsummers, Marans and Sussex - but the one thing I found really quite stressful was the selling part. I hated the birds going off to a home that I knew nothing about after my months of hard work. You can't hand pick your buyers, at least not if you are selling in any quantity, and there are only so many friends and family to sell to!!

[doganjo]

So far my wife seems to be really enjoying the process of hatching chicks. We're also able to produce our own fertilised duck eggs from strong birds so if she did decide to hatch more, we'd need to move on ones that we didn't want to keep. It sounds like nobody would buy unvacinated chicks or ducklings so does that leave the only option being use them as meat birds, or is there a way to get them vaccinated to sell on, either by us or is it something vet's would do at a reasonable price etc. For example if a vet was going to charge £20/bird there would be no way it would be viable to have them done for sale

Hatching chicks and ducklings is fascinating but you have to be able to kill any males you don't want or can't sell. I never vaccinated any of mine but then I only did it a few times and didn't sell any as I'd plenty room to keep them

[Conor1]

Hello!
  I don’t vaccinate my chickens, since we raise them for ourselves. It’s enough that I feed them this quality food
but if I start raising poultry for sale, I would rather be inclined towards vaccination. But it’s very interesting to read for the future, thanks!