Explain poultry farming. what could be the possible reasons of disease in poultry
Answers
What causes diseases in poultry?
How Microorganisms Spread. The primary method of spreading disease causing microorganisms between poultry flocks is the use of contaminated equipment or exposure to contaminated clothing and footwear of humans. Infected animals, such as wild birds and rodents, can also be a source of disease for poultry flocks.
Answer:
Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to produce meat or eggs for food. It has originated from the agricultural era. Poultry – mostly chickens – are farmed in great numbers. More than 60 billion chickens are killed for consumption annually. Chickens raised for eggs are known as layers, while chickens raised for meat are called broilers.
Many factors can contribute to diseases in your flock. By being aware of their causes and how they spread, you can put practices into place to reduce the risk of disease occurring.
Disease can often lead to reduced performance in areas such as breeding, growth rate, feed conversion and egg production. Disease can also affect appearance in show birds and racing ability in pigeon flocks.
Although there are many possible causes of disease, it is often a combination of factors that make birds sick.
Infectious agents
Infectious agents are living organisms that cause disease or illness and can be spread from bird to bird. These include 'germs' (bacteria, viruses, fungi), external parasites (lice and mites) and internal parasites (worms, coccidiosis, blackhead). Infectious agents that cause disease are also referred to as pathogens.
Environmental conditions
Some environmental conditions can also make birds sick. Unlike infectious agents, the illness is not spread between birds. When the environment affects the health of birds it is usually because the animals are unable to adapt to the conditions. Environmental factors that can cause disease include:
poisons
injury
nutritional deficiencies
poor air quality
temperature extremes
physical stress
exposure to disease carrying vermin and insects such as rodents and darkling beetles.
Stress
Severe physical stress can reduce the birds' ability to resist disease. Flocks rely on people to give them:
appropriate feed and clean, uncontaminated water
appropriate environmental conditions
shelter.
Without these, birds may suffer stress from fear, malnutrition, dehydration, over-crowding, dirty conditions and extremes in climatic conditions.
How infectious agents spread
Disease can be spread by new infectious agents entering your flock or by the spread of established infectious agents that are already in the flock.
Disease can be spread by:
people - including through clothing, hands and footwear
domestic and wild birds - through droppings, feathers and discharges from the nose and mouth
contaminated equipment and vehicles
eggs
air
feed and water
animals (e.g. dogs, cats, rodents)
insects (e.g. mosquitoes, flies, beetles) - through the transmission of diseases such as fowl pox, tapeworm, Newcastle disease and Salmonella.
In many cases of infection, birds (and other animals) keep illness at bay and do not appear sick. These so-called ‘carriers’ do not look sick but can spread disease, often without detection. This is often the case with the food safety pathogen Salmonella, where infected birds do not usually show visual signs of infection.
Specific classes of disease
Some poultry diseases are more serious due to their ability to spread quickly and their potential impact on commercial poultry industries. In Queensland, some poultry diseases are classified as prohibited or restricted matter, and must be reported to Biosecurity Queensland on 13 25 23. If you become aware of prohibited matter or category 1 and 2 restricted matter, you must report it within 24 hours.
Prohibited matter poultry diseases include:
avian influenza (highly pathogenic)
duck virus enteritis (duck plague)
duck virus hepatitis
infectious bursal disease (hypervirulent and exotic antigenic variant forms)
Newcastle disease (virulent).
Restricted matter poultry diseases include:
avian influenza (low pathogenic)
infectious laryngotracheitis virus
Newcastle disease (avirulent)
Salmonella enteritidis infection in poultry.