What is it?
It's highly pathogenic, which means, it spreads quickly. It's highly contagious. This is H5N1 and is the Eurasian Strain. It's carried by wild birds as they migrate and travel from yard to yard, pond to pond.
What does it affect?
All birds. It can present as a a respiratory illness or sudden death. As we know, prey animals work hard to not show symptoms of weakness until they can't hide them anymore. Your birds will stop drinking and get very quiet. It can also make a jump to humans, but right now we're not worried about that. Let's focus on our birds.
What are the risks?
Your flock. Your neighbors flock. Your pets. The government will destroy your entire flock if your birds test positive. As someone who just lost her dog of 14 years, I personally cannot handle another loss of my pets.
What is it not?
I'm all for a great conspiracy theory. I enjoy reading about how the earth is hollow, there's a secret society controlling everyone on the planet, birds aren't real, etc. THIS IS NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY. The government lost billions the last time this happened in 2016.
Ok...so how do we handle this?
Say it with me now. BIOSECURITY
Biosecurity is the practice of keeping out germs and pathogens from your folk but also in your life. You have been practicing (hopefully) biosecurity for yourself your entire life. Wash your hands after using the bathroom, don't pick your nose, if you sneeze or cough cover your mouth, sanitize your house, clean up dust...you get the point. These are the beginnings of biosecurity that we teach to help humans keep from getting sick.
Guess what? These apply to your backyard flocks.
Well Rai, this is going to be expensive. Nope. It doesn't have to be. None of this needs to be Pinterest level flock down. No one has time for it and hopefully some of these extreme measures will be temporary. It's time for farming or redneck engineering. Every single one of us has a unique situation when it comes to our set ups. No one is the same. So you will have to get creative.
You want your run to be covered and free from wild birds. You can use tarps, umbrellas, whatever you have to cover your run. We don't want wild bird poop or dander in our runs. That's an easy way to start. Your birds will need to enter flock down. That means no free range. I have hardware cloth on the bottom of my run, but it's not really covered. I've limited where my girls can go in their run for now and they only have access to where it's covered. I have hawk netting that's attached to my hardware cloth. However, I purchased inexpensive bird netting to go on top of that. You can use chicken wire, you can use that. I did have to take my netting down because of the wind storms that rolled through here. But it's going back up.
Zip ties are your best friend. Seriously. My run area looks like something from M.A.S.H. for those of you old enough to remember that!
My feeders and waterers are wild bird proof. If you have a wild bird proof run, then this will be less of an issue. But I hate mice and don't want pests in my run at all, so mine are wild bird proof (nipple drinkers and treadle feeders).
I also have Camp Clucker, which is the tent set up I have in my house for the girls. That's another article for another time.
Let's talk clothes and shoes
One of my students was playing on the floor one day not far from the bathrooms. I asked him if he really wanted to be on the floor there, especially since his face was on the tiles. He looked at me like I was crazy until I reminded him that people walk into the bathroom. They track all the germs and nastiness on their shoes to other parts of the building. Yup this applies to backyard poultry too.
Let's face it. Caring for animals is not about fashion at all. But knowing how to use your clothes for biosecurity is helpful. For example I have shoes that are just for my coop area. I had to tighten up by scraping the shoes and dipping them in a solution of equal parts water and bleach. Dip only works if you have scraped off any poop or mud from your shoes. Some people use hospital booties if they are going from coop to coop.
I have coop only clothing. These are my old barn clothes, and they are...loved to say the least. I only wear these clothes in my run. I don't want to track in wild bird poop, dander, or even a virus from a feed store. I hit up a feed store only on my way home from work. Why? I heard the best tip, wear your fancy clothes and shoes to the feed store. You won't be taking them out to your chicken run.
What happens if I have a sick bird?
You can get your birds tested.
If a bird dies, you should send it for a necropsy. Your state has laboratories dedicated to this. I'll include Maryland's info at the end of this article.
What else can I do to protect my flock?
Have a closed flock. Don't bring people over to chill with your birds.
Don't bring your birds to feed stores.
Don't go to poultry swaps.
Don't bring in new birds without an extensive quarantine.
Only purchase from NPIP.
Document everything with photos, time stamps, etc.
Follow everything they suggest on defend the flock
Wash your hands.
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