FEATURE H


aving rabbited on in my previous article ‘A New Approach To Disease Control in Budgies’ about birds’ immune systems and how disease prevention is vastly more important with birds than it is with humans, it’s reasonable to expect that some people are dubious. Many breeders do not use the high sunlight system that helps birds to stay healthy through greater Vitamin D3 production. Yet their birds seem to be fine, so perhaps we should look at what they do.


Chickens


CHICKEN TEM OF D HEALTH


The basic idea of healthy poultry through better management systems was developed by scientists working with chickens. Fundamentally, it is called the deep litter system. It is now widely used with poultry all over the world, both in commercial farms and also in some backyard coops. At modern chicken farms, you encounter the sort of bio-security that you could expect at the US high security Ebola Clinics. Inside everyone wears special uniforms – white overalls, gloves, gumboots (or shoe coverings), face masks and hairnets. To enter you walk through antiseptic footbaths. All of this serves to prevent disease entry. The chicken barns are sealed against the potential entry of pigeons, sparrows, rats and mice. Air conditioners control temperature, humidity and dust particles. Above and beyond everything else,


BIRD SCENE 29BIRD SCENE 07


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