One of the greatest joys of homesteading is keeping chickens. With the passage of urban ordinances allowing chickens, fresh eggs are becoming a reality for more households. Today I would like to talk about the single most important key to success with chickens; bio-security. It means protecting your flock from infectious diseases and it encompasses any precaution you take to prevent diseases from entering or surviving in your barnyard. Simply put: it’s using common sense when it comes to protecting your flock.
An important key to biosecurity is buying healthy certified stock. Buchheit’s improved brooding systems are designed with biosecurity in mind. This system is expensive to build and maintain but Buchheit has made the commitment to bringing only the healthiest stock and I appreciate it.
All the hatcheries used by Buchheit are tested by the National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP) which was established in the 1930s to eliminate Pullorum disease caused by Salmonella Pullorum. The program was later refined to include other contagious diseases like Salmonella typhoid and Avian Influenza.
Twice, I have made the mistake of purchasing birds from sources other than a certified hatchery; both times with disastrous results. The first time, I was trying to fill all my orders for eggs and tried buying chicks from a start-up hatchery. The sirens should have been going off when I walked into a filthy cold room covered in an inch of dander (chicken dandruff and dried fecal material). Of the 25 chicks, all developed respiratory infections that killed most of them outright but I nursed a handful all winter long in an isolation coop. The surviving pullets all died of heart conditions caused from inbred stock without ever laying an egg. Not a pretty story but I learned a great deal about sick birds that long winter.
The next time was going to a well-known established swap meet. I was selling certified turkey poults and at the end of the day traded several for some Blue Slate poults. My biggest mistake was not examining the poults close enough. I was forced to cull all of them due to respiratory infections as they did not respond to treatment.
I never have had any issues like these when I buy birds from a store like Buchheit and I have purchased hundreds of birds over the years.
So please buy stock from certified hatcheries that have been inspected by the NPIP. You will not regret it!
