photo credit: Ani Carrington
If you are going to keep chickens as pets, it’s important to look after their health as you would any other pet. While chickens have a reputation for being stupid and unfeeling, in fact they are surprisingly intelligent and emotional birds, and it’s your responsibility to keep your pet chicken healthy.
Be especially wary of diseases of the respiratory tract, a common chicken health problem. You also need to watch for fowl pox (also known as avian diphtheria), a nasty thing that comes in a dry or wet form. The dry form causes lesions on featherless parts of the bird, while the wet form causes lesions inside the mouth and throat that can swell until the chicken can’t breathe. There’s no cure for this, but you can vaccinate against it. Newcastle disease is extremely dangerous in chickens, and it can cause conjunctivitis in humans and other pets.
Like fowl pox, there is no cure but there is a vaccine. If you are going to have a pet chicken, be sure to do your research about their potential health problems first, and find a qualified vet in the area who knows about the health issues chickens can face.
Similar Chicken Coup Stuff:
- Chicken Health photo credit: Rusty_CallyT2007 Chickens have a reputation for being...
- Health Problems with Chickens photo credit: thievingjoker If you are purchasing your chicken...
- Prevent Foot Problems in Chickens photo credit: hans s One of the problems that...
- Why Keep Free Range Chickens? photo credit: glass window Besides the ethical reasoning for...
- Urban Chicken Coup photo credit: apium Though chickens are often perceived as...
