Chickens and pregnancy

[Purplecat]

does any one know the "rules" about being around chickens during pregnancy. we have 26 chickens (12 babies) and not sure how much contact, if any i should have with them when i finally get preg.

[Miranda]

If your chickens came from a salmonella vaccinated stock or you hatched them yourself, and you're confident they've not eaten any cooked food of yours I'd say that you're likely to be fairly safe. Not sure there are any 'rules' as such with chickens (always was a minority pet although a lot more common these days), just observe usual normal hygiene ones like washing hands, and maybe if you've a big dusty chicken shed like ours that you wear a mask when sweeping it out, our little houses you can take apart to clean out so you don't have to climb in so it's a much cleaner job. As far as I'm aware they don't carry anything beyond worms every now and then and I'm not sure they're of the same variety as dogs/cats get where you can get eg toxoplasmosis etc, but I'd just observe your normal routine with treatment (we treat ours monthly in the feed)