"Chicken" Pox

Our birds have chicken pox.  It is actually called "fowl pox" and is not the same thing as chicken pox.

Avian pox is a relatively slow-spreading viral disease in birds... Mortality is not usually significant unless the respiratory involvement is marked.....Fowl pox can be transmitted by direct or indirect contact... After the infection is introduced, it spreads within the flock by mosquitoes as well as direct and indirect contact. Recovered birds do not remain carriers. 

Since fowl pox usually spreads slowly, a flock may be affected for several months. The course of the disease in the individual bird takes three to five weeks. Laying birds experience a drop in egg production. Birds of all ages that have oral or respiratory system involvement have difficulty eating and breathing. The disease manifests itself in one or two ways, cutaneous pox (dry form) or diphtheritic pox (wet form).

 Dry pox starts as small whitish foci that develop into wart-like nodules.

Wet pox is associated with the oral cavity and the upper respiratory tract, particularly the larynx and trachea. 

There is no treatment for fowl pox. 

Here is the evidence for our birds:

The tiny little black dots on their combs, wattles, and earlobes are signs of fowl pox.  The good news (so far) is that the form they have is not deadly.  The bad news is that it will take 3-4 weeks to clear up and it will spread to all of the birds.  So it looks like we will be seeing this through the winter.

There is a vaccine, however it doesn't work once they have the pox.  I also don't know if any of the birds have already been vaccinated for it since we got them all once they were a couple months old.  At this point I am just keeping an eye on them to make sure it doesn't turn into the respiratory version that can be deadly and watching which birds show signs of it.  We have 3 or 4 that have had it for a couple weeks now.