Feed store rant!

[Back to Nature]

I run a bio-secure poultry farm...by ME letting YOU handle my chicks I have possibly exposed my chicks to a serious poultry illness. NO-ONE handles my poultry...EVER!

You cannot "see" CRD's yet they are passed along on your hands, hair, clothes, shoes etc.

Are you at all familiar with poultry illnesses? Most are not evident...they are often dormant and are triggered by an event.

I do hold up my birds so that feet, toes beaks, butts etc can be seen by the buyer. My customers appreciate that I have a farm that practices such intense bio-security.

A few years back after a long quarantine I put some birds in with my flock... short end of the matter is the new birds were carriers of MG and I had an outbreak.. I had to KILL 200+/- birds. My farm was quarantined til all MG was eradicated.

Set me back $3000 with total loss approx $5000. Had to start all over with expensive hatching eggs treat with special egg "dip" to eradicate any carriers in the hatching eggs then grow them back up wait til they were old enough to breed out. That is a BIG loss.

So... one person being offended... oh well... that just means they have no clue of the seriousness of bio-security. When I share with my customers the "whys" of our practices they usually ask for more info on keeping a healthy flock and generally appreciate it.

I don't think you read the part where I said "or offered to show it to me" before you got all offended.

Wasn't offended at all. Sorry if it came across that way. I was trying to show a broader picture, and yes they could have held up the chicks for you. It is more about the way diseases are transferred and that most poultry diseases cannot be seen. Maybe you are not this way but I have seen too many times people get really angry about not being able to handle the chicks at the feed stores and really it is the establishment trying to make sure the birds are not getting "contaminated". There is also an issue of salmonella, a hatchery that ships all over the US had a huge public notice announcement when people, in I think it was 26 states, had gotten sick from handling their ducks, all at feed stores.

Most chicken fanciers really don't know much about poultry illnesses. Just look at how many "swaps" occur all the time, then people wonder why they have sick chickens and marecks and CRD's.

I plan on quarantining all new animals I have, and I can understand why people won't want everyone and their uncle touching the animals. But at the very least they could have held it up so I could make sure they don't have any parasites under the wings or similar hidden issues.

I do think it's stupid when people freak out because they can't play with the chicks. Chicks are cute, but they aren't toys, even if you're certain neither the bird nor human has a disease. But they should allow prospective buyers to look.

Several years later I don't have land, but hopefully I'll get some soon. Maybe I can find a BYH-er in Michigan to buy stock from!