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tory disease, listed in the sidebar “Respiratory Red Flags” on page
72. They may additionally have a “puffed up” appearance and be reluctant to move. Furthermore, if hens are in lay, they’ll often have reduced egg production and the shells will look and feel wrinkled.
Multiple versions of infectious bronchitis virus are typically identified with names such as “Delaware,” “California variant 99” and “Arkansas type.” This reflects the slightly different genetics of each strain. Interestingly in the poultry world, different vaccines exist for the different serotypes of coronaviruses, which reflect these differences. (While COVID-19 has mutated like all living organisms, still one version exists with respect to its serotype.)
It will be interesting to see if eventually COVID-19 mutates enough overtime to require multiple vaccine types in humans. That is assuming that we are able to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, which at the time of writing this article, is still up in the air.
Chickens get infectious bronchitis following inhalation or direct contact with contaminated poultry litter equipment or fomites (nonliving material that can transmit disease). It should also be noted that the virus can spread between and within poultry flocks as well as by wild birds. It’s highly contagious and has a very short incubation time of 24 to 48 hours before infected chickens show the clinical signs mentioned previously.
Care & Concern
So what do you do when your birds get sick? First, you need to confirm what your chickens have. Unfortunately, this is done via a necropsy (aka an animal autopsy). You can work with your veterinarian or state animal diagnostic lab to get this done. In many cases, these are done for free or for a nominal cost. (For example, in California where I live, the cost is $20.)
Unfortunately, there’re no treatments for infectious bronchitis. This
is why prevention is so important. To reduce the risk of having your chickens contract infectious bronchitis and other infectious diseases, you must practice good biosecurity. While there are vaccine options for infectious bronchitis, in general, they don’t work great for reasons beyond the scope of this article. For this reason and many others, focus on biosecurity.
Make small incremental improvements in fencing, equipment, feed storage and you’ll be doing your part to reduce exposure. Philosophically, don’t make “perfect the enemy of good.” In other words, do the best you can with the resources and husbandry style you have. When in doubt, reach out to your veterinarian and/or friendly cooperative extension specialist regarding any biosecurity questions you may have. (For more about biosecurity, visit www.hobbyfarms.com/?s=biosecurity).
Once infected — even if part of your flock recovers — your chickens may still be carriers and hence transmit disease to naive chickens. Therefore, if your flock is diagnosed with infectious bronchitis, keeping your flock quarantined for the remainder of its life is important.
Human vs. Poultry
Multiple global studies show that chickens and other domestic poultry aren’t susceptible to COVID-19. Transmission of coronaviruses
(of which COVID-19 is one of many types) from poultry to humans or vice versa hasn’t been demonstrated. Poultry-based foods, including eggs and poultry meat, are safe to eat. Regardless, always handle poultry products and all food with good food-safety practices.
Keep in mind that coronaviruses are respiratory viruses that are transmitted from person to person primarily via the respiratory route. There haven’t been documented cases of the virus being transmitted via an oral inoculation from a contaminated product (i.e., think of the virus being deposited on food by an infected individual.).
This is primarily because coronaviruses are what we call “enveloped viruses.” Enveloped viruses are “wimpy” when exposed to UV sunlight, heat and disinfectants versus nonenveloped viruses, which are much more difficult to inactivate. (Note: You can’t kill a virus because most biologists don’t consider viruses to be alive or even organisms. As the French biologist and Nobel laureate André Lwoff said in 1962: “Whether or not viruses should be regarded as organisms is a matter of taste.”
Based on our historic and emerging knowledge of coronaviruses, the primary route of infection is airborne. Practicing good hygiene, husbandry and biosecurity with your poultry in a “COVID world” is no different than a “NON-COVID world.” When it comes to poultry, let’s keep our “eyes on the ball” and focus on the greater risks with respect to food safety, such as salmonella and campylobacter.
Maurice Pitesky, D.V.M., is faculty at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine-cooperative Extension.