Most normal Flues are bird flus that come from Asia, they may mutate slightly in the US but they all do the majority of there changing in birds and hop the species barrior over in asia then come here. You know what deaseas kills most of the people exposed to bird flu, salmonella! nTreat your flock like you would a sick person down aat the office and you should be fine, just don't let youy kids go and play with the birds. We Identified H5 in the 50's and in mutated to H5N1 in the late 90's, its had ten years of migrations to cross the pacific but it has failed to, so why are we so worried that it will this year? MEdia Hype, I've heard lots of people say "its not if but when" the truth is its still if, Unfortunately when bird get sick they don't show many symptoms except death, So if your chickens all die heres a hint, don't hold a funeral! Beyond that theres not much we can do, because we are about tenthousand times more likely to catch H5N1 from some guy down at the office than we are to catch it from birds that we don't share a keyboard or phone with. Oh, and don't assume that because the CDC says something its true, I was listening to the Radio last night and I heard about the hog flu epidemic some years back, the Army was tracking it for research purposes and the CDC found out, issued a press conference about it, 60,000 people got vaccinated in the next few weeks, a good number of them had adverse side effects from the vacine, One person died from the actuall thing, one.

Lori, Nolo bait is actually a parasite/virus or something similar that causes grasshoppers to die. The hopper ingests the bait, it works on its digestive system and the hopper is a goner. Since hoppers are cannibalistic (I hope you aren't reading this around mealtime) other hoppers eat the dead ones and pick up the disease/parasite, whatever. The best thing is that Nolo only works on hoppers and crickets, leaving beneficials and pollinators, and domestic animals safe. Tempo is another hopper killer, but it is toxic to bees, butterflies, pets, and almost everything else that moves. Down side--Nolo has a shelf life of 90 days, so you have to use it up. Also, it is not a "belly-up" insecticide. It works over a period of a week or two, and two applications about two weeks apart is recommended for infestations. When you see the first grasshopper is the time to spread the bait, and then again in two weeks or so. You can get more information by doing a search on Nolo bait. I am ordering mine over the internet, because no one around here stocks it early enough to be effective. I must admit, after I saw what the little buggers did to my roses last year, I really enjoyed killing them this year!

I am sure that there is something to the bird flu passing to humans, I know that I would be devestated if it somehow hit my family in a fatal way. But I am sure also that there is a lot of hype. News media is all about the dollar and what headlines and hysteria can sell. I do not equate my having chickens in my backyard to having 3 million birds, I don't make my living on them, but our eggs and chicken meat make for huge part of my family's diet. Having chickens is a very large part of our lifestyle. In my mind, they are a security blanket. I know that sounds silly but I guess you would have to know where I am coming from to fully understand. Anyway given all this, I am terrified of having my chickens taken from me and destroyed, without true cause. A couple of years ago, we had people coming around and testing everyones flocks, that was before I had chickens. But I remember that the kids who were showing chickens all had their birds tested and they didn't find any deseased birds, were allowed to show away from the regular show grounds, but were not allowed to sell their birds, and all the complete flocks were destroyed after the show. It made me sick and furious. I live in a county that has an extremely high commercial poultry farm population. I feel that this is the real reason for this kind of action. I can appreciate the original thoughts behind this but feel that this type of action often feeds the frenzie. My fear is that this sort of thing is going to affect the small family farm operations in the long run. I predict that the commercial industry is going to end up getting laws passed to keep families and individuals from having their own backyard flocks. Then next we will not be aloud to keep one or two or 10 cows. It will be rights exclusive to the commerical operations. This truly frightens me, and I don't want to live here in this country if that should happen. Quite often it is the practices at these commercial operations that lead to devestating problems anyway, e-coli(cow lot grainfed cows with poor sanitation in butcher plants), mad cow (feeding downer cow by-products to cows)and all sorts of bird illnesses that thrive in the 1 ft or more deep chicken litter that build up until those birds are ready to butcher, approx every 6 weeks. These are signs that systems need to be rethought, but it will be the country family that pays. I have decided to drastically downsize my flock to just a few birds so that I might be able to build up again after all this passes. I would rather sell and/or butcher most of my flock now than lose everything later. I still hope for the best.

I have to agree with the majority of the previous comments. I raised Chows for years and heard how awful their disposition was and that many were afraid of them.... not mine, they were raised to be docile and loving pets and not once did I have one of the ones I kept or those placed in homes ever turn on anyone. I have had two pit bulls, notorious for their evil ways, and mine would fall over and wet themselves if anyone would even look in their direction, lol. I currently have a beagle, a lab mix , a yorkie and a heinz 57...only the heinz is allowed near the livestock.... he goes in the chicken coop with me, alerts me when one has left their 'pasture' and even totally ignores the dozen guineas that roam the land. All the others although raised the same as he, are terrible about wanting to chase and conquer... but I did not raise them from pups, they were rescues. My son recently gave me a Mastiff that is now 4 months old and she has wanted to chase the birds, but in a puppy play manner... we have taken a stern hand at making sure she is exposed to them and reprimanded when she becomes 'aggressive'.... she is allowed free roam of the land now and does not show any aggression.... and it has only been 4 weeks.... she still gets excited when she sees guineas squawk by but looks at us for her reprimand, lol..... any breed, if handled well, can become docile, it does not have nearly as much to do with breed as it does training..... know your breeder.... visit their set up and see how they raise their animals... meet the pups parents... and start early with a strong hand in discipline...... that is my 2cents, lol......