Ingredients for frostbite: Take one coop of chickens. Add one polar vortex event.
All in Chicken Maladies
Virulent Newcastle Disease Can Kill Your Backyard Flock
In May of 2018, backyard chickens in Los Angeles County, California began to die – first in one backyard, then in another, then in many, many more. It was the beginning of the spread of a terrible scourge known as Virulent Newcastle Disease (vND), a contagious and deadly viral disease that affects birds. By January 2019, in spite of the heroic efforts by staff of the US Department of Agriculture and the California Department of Food and Agriculture, not only had vND found its way into large commercial flocks, it continued to spread through many, many more backyard flocks southern California.
Marek’s Disease – Six Things You Should Know
If Marek’s Disease strikes your flock there’s very little you can do except suffer as your sick chickens suffer, and end their suffering when it becomes severe. There is no cure. Thus, your best strategy is to prevent Marek’s from harming your flock in the first place.
Sour Crop and Flystrike: The Little Red Hen Gets Well
This is the saga of how one tenacious little red hen at death's door fought her way back to the land of the living. It is also the tale of my search for the needle of truth about a confusing chicken disease and its treatment in the haystack of conflicting information on the internet. Sometimes, in order to do the right thing for your sick chicken, you have to sift through a lot of hay, then grit your teeth and hope you’re grabbing the needle.
Baseball, Sick Chickens, and Love
A hen can go from normal to fly-blown in 24 hours, and can go from fly-blown to dead in an equally short period of time.