New Castle Disease

[PickleMeDickles]

Our area is under quarantine for New Castle Disease (NCD). And I have chickens. A lot of chickens. Just recently I learned that Amazons are particularly susceptible to this disease. I have friends with chickens that have tested positive for NCD and the feds euthanized every last one. Now I am terrified for SassyByrd! I would sell every last one today. But with this quarantine I can’t allow 1 chicken or egg off my property or it’s a $20,000.00 fine. And if you have chickens and a parrot the parrot must be placed under the same quarantine. Of course I am following CDC level (minus the suits ) quarantine guidelines, but I also have dogs that are in and out. There is a vaccine but I have heard pretty scary stuff about it. Does anyone have any further information in reference to NCD and parrots?

 

[Scott]

I live just outside the quarantine area (Oceanside) but am familiar in principle. Two weeks ago I visited Magnolia in Riverside and they had trays of disinfectant for shoes and towels to dry. Recommended spraying legs with if coming from a home with avians. Scary stuff, debated whether it was worth a stop. Once inside, plenty of folks had visiting birds on shoulders, harnesses, etc.

Have not heard much about vaccines, would need more info before subjecting my flock if needed. Guess you have to be vigilant and precisely follow rules until this subsides. I've heard horror stories of relentless authorities - all they care about is protecting commercial chicken/egg farms.

 

[SailBoat]

Likewise foggy on the vaccines. But my memory is that it is not for Avian use. Horses were the original target species for the vaccine.

The first level of your quarantine is when you enter your home. We have an attached garage and for us it is the separation point. All shoes are left in the garage and when we come in from a local pet store, bird fair, or other individuals that have Parrots, we remove our clothing and place it in the wash machine, we then shower prior to any contact with our Amazon. We are not in an area that is 'currently' near a NCD quarantine. So, we only remove our shoes. but will increase if needed.

If you are in or near a quarantine area, you need to upgrade you personal quarantine procedures.

Where you live has major effects as to what quarantine practices you involve. In the Great White North, we experience ground freezing that kills or greatly reduces surface transfer. As warm weather begins, cleaning your animals feet becomes more important.

How much you commit to is dependent on what you know of the threat(s) in your area. Ramp-up as needed, back-off when concerns lessen.

Amazons are known to be susceptible to NCD.

Range Chickens work the ground and lower branches of trees and bushes, they pick-up near everything in those areas and when you interact with them you end-up being the transfer point.

Your local Avian Professional best understands what are real issues in your area and what precaution levels you need to set in place!

 

[GaleriaGila]

Oh, geeeeeee... scary. SO SORRY TO HEAR!
Hang in there. Wow.
Holding you all in my thoughts.

 

[EllenD]

I'm so sorry that you guys out west are dealing with this crap, I went to the Rescue last night for about 3 hours to catch-up on a pile of Bearded-Dragons, Leopard Geckos, and young, juvenile Iguanas that have been slowly accumulating due to the Penn State students leaving for home and dumping their reptiles. One of the volunteers is a PSU student who is in the Veterinary Science department and the Agricultural Science department, which includes the Animal Diagnostics Lab/Avian Inflluenza lab that I used to work for, and she said that they have been getting pallets and pallets of eggs shipped-in for testing right now, and it's absolutely insane there when this happens. The Avian Influenza lab at PSU is actually named so because it was originally founded as a part of the Animal Diagnostics Lab back in the late-90's/early 00's when that huge Avian Influenxa outbreak in the US happened, for those of you that might remember that, but they actually do all types of Avian testing and Vaccine-development for humans and livestock against Viral Diseases such as West Nile, Avian Influenza, New Castle Disease, Avian Borna Virus, etc. I remember coming into work first thing in the morning and seeing literally thousands and thousands of eggs being sent-in from all across the country by farmers who had chicken-flocks that were either supplied eggs to retailers or chickens to companies like Perdue and Tyson (no, they don't only use their own chickens raised on their own farms to make their chicken-tenders, patties, fingers, strips, etc.)...

The process of testing eggs for Avian Viral Diseases like this is sooooooo tedious and slow, I can only describe it as mind-numbing and Carpel-Tunnel inducing...Everyone who did Viral-testing of serum and whole-blood, did PCR, etc. over in the Animal Diagnostic Lab, which at the time was 50 yards across the parking lot from the Avian Influenza Lab, were recruited to do mass-testing of eggs during any of these Avian Viral outbreaks...You would spend from 7:30 a.m. when you came in to work until 5:00 p.m. at least using disposable syringes to very gently crack a hole in each egg, such ONLY the yolk out of the egg and put it in a test-tube that you pre-numbered according to the egg, and then doing the same with the egg-white into another pre-labled test-tube (usually we were there until much later because every single egg that arrived that day had to be set-up for testing and the sample inclubated on that day, so you couldn't leave until every last egg that arrived that day was separated and incubated)...It really was a skill because if you cracked the shell and any of the yolk or whites leaked out of the egg, it was contaminated to the air and couldn't be tested...So the end-result when these outbreaks happen is that most large-scale chicken farms end-up euthanizing entire flocks, even if they are not infected with the Virus, because of the massive number of contaminated egg-samples (we only got 1 egg from each chicken, so the entire flock would be euthanized if even 1 chicken tested positive)...And then for the meat-chickens they sent tubes of whole-blood, thousands and thousands of tubes of whole-blood, that depending on the Virus we were testing for had to spun-down in a centrifuge to separate the serum from the solids, and then we would either use the serum to run ELISA tests, OR we did PCR to replicate, etc...IT SUCKED!!! I much preferred doing my mammalian testing on herds of 10, 25, 40, 50, 70, 100 pigs, cows, goats/sheep, etc.

****As far as I know there is no vaccine for New Castle Disease that you can give to your birds to protect them...All of the vaccinations for NCD that I'm aware of are meant for mammals, either livestock like cows, horses, pigs, goats/sheep, etc., for dogs and cats, or for people. Now maybe they have developed a NCD vaccination for birds since I've been dealing with this kind of stuff, but I highly doubt it because I haven't ever read anything about one or heard of any in any bulletins, journal articles, etc. that I read every week. That being said, as mentioned above by Sailboat, if you live in the quarantine-zone, you need to protect everyone in your households by being ULTRA-CAREFUL AND DILIGENT about not bringing anything in from outside into your home. Taking your shoes and socks off BEFORE you come inside your home (either in the garage, on the porch/patio, or even making a designated area that is outside and away from your house or apartment building to take your shoes and socks off and leave them there), washing your hands with hot water and Anti-Bacterial soap before you touch your birds, and when it comes to indoor-birds I would also change your clothes to clothes that you never wear outside before you come near your birds....I highly suggest that people buy some F10SC Disinfectant and use that to wash your hands with any any areas that may have been contaminated by anything outside, as F10SC kills Viruses and everything else better than even Bleach does.

Good luck to anyone going through this, I know first-hand what you mean by "the authorities" just simply wanting to euthanize every bird in-sight without even testing them first...Living in Pennsylvania, one of the strictest states when it comes to keeping animals as pets, they regularly go to people's homes who are turned-in by someone, usually a Veterinarian or someone who has a conflict with them and who knows they have a pet that they shouldn't have, and they simply take their pets and euthanize them immediately, doing it as soon as they possibly can, sometimes actually as soon as they reach their vehicles, so that the owners do not have time to file anything in court so that a judge can file an injunction keeping the authorities from destroying the animals....I've seen this with people who have had pets for years, sometimes decades, like primates (monkeys, lemurs, etc.), Sugar Gliders, Hedgehogs, or any pets that naturally occur here in the wild but that are regularly bred and hand-raised as pets in other states, such as Skunks, Raccoons, Squirrels, Foxes, Prairie Dogs, etc. It doesn't matter to the authorities that someone has had a pet since they were just weeks old, they bottle-fed them, and have had them for 10, 20, 30+ years at all, they just simply destroy them on the spot here in PA when they aren't sick...So I can't imagine what they would do in your situation going on with the NCD...

 

[texsize]

I think I am in the quarantine zone here in LA county.
I am afraid to even take my birds outside for a walk (ether in my pak-o-bird or on an aviator harness).
I know I have neighbors that have chickens (I hear the rooster crowing in the morning).
I even canceled a vet appointment to avoid the chance of exposing my entire flock through taking one of my Fids somewhere that they would come into contact with other birds.
Hope the quarantine ends soon.