Preventing common chicken diseases
Part 1
No matter what you use your chickens for, keeping your birds happy and healthy is always a priority in raising them. Healthy chickens mean a better profit for your hatchery. To keep your birds healthy and free of poultry diseases, your biosecurity needs to be up to snuff.
To better understand the poultry diseases you may run into, it’s important to first understand the types of diseases that are out there. Each type of disease has its own causes and set of issues, but with proper biosecurity, most can be easily avoided.
Behavioural diseases
If your birds are acting aggressive, pecking other birds, or excessively plucking feathers, this could be a sign of a behavioral health problem. Overly stressed birds may begin eating eggs or revert to cannibalism under certain living conditions. To stop problems before they start, make sure your flock has adequate nutrition, isn’t overheating or overcrowding. Keep up with other general health concerns, too.
Metabolic/ nutritional diseases
Chickens that are l iv i ng in an unhe a l thy environment are more susceptible to metabolic and nutritional diseases. Birds can become lame, have soft bones and beaks, or have a reduction in egg production if they are not receiving proper nutrition and exercise. Most of these diseases can be easily remedied with proper care of your birds, but sometimes these symptoms can be a factor of other underlying diseases.
Infectious diseases
Infectious poultry diseases can be viral, bacterial, or fungal and tend to be the most common since they easily spread from bird to bird. Infectious diseases can affect your birds’ intestinal, nervous, respiratory, immune, or reproductive systems, as well as their skin. If any of your birds show signs of an infectious poultry disease, it’s important to isolate the incident as much as possible and treat your birds quickly to protect your flock.
Parasitic diseases
Parasites can live on or in your bird and are often contracted via contact with other infected birds or particular living conditions. A few types of common parasites are ticks, mites, lice, fleas, or roundworms. Most of the time you can see the parasites or their symptoms via feather damage, irritation, or even in the faeces of your birds. Doing monthly checks of your birds and keeping your chickens’ enclosures clean should help avoid any parasitic poultry diseases.