People are justifiably concerned about the recent outbreaks of human COVID-19, but there is a lot of misinformation circulating on the internet. One is with regards to chickens. Despite what some news outlets have reported, COVID-19 did NOT originate in chickens and you CANNOT get COVID-19 from chickens. There is some speculation that it originated in bats – another mammal.
COVID-19 is a coronavirus. Yes, chickens get coronavirus – but not all coronaviruses are the same.
The diagram below should give you an idea of what a coronavirus looks like. The projections on the outside of the envelope will determine which species the coronaviruses can attach to. COVID-19 is specific to mammals, not birds. Right now it is mainly human cases that are being detected, although one dog has tested positive.
Coronaviruses are not new. Many livestock and poultry diseases are caused by a coronavirus. For chickens, Infectious Bronchitis (IB) is caused by a coronavirus. IB is not transferred from birds to humans.
So – do not be afraid of your chickens. Good biosecurity is important to keep disease of any kind from your flock. Always wash your hands with soap and water to make sure that you do not get sick with salmonella, a bacteria carried in the intestines of many animals, including chickens (and humans).
Could covid-19 virus br carried on the skin of hatchery chickens due to being handled by an exposed person in the hatchery? Or could the virus get on the skin while being shipped?
There is no research to show that – but this is a novel coronavirus so nothing is known for sure.
The actual handling of the chicks by a person is limited.
I think the down feathers would prevent the coronavirus from getting to the skin.
Yes in fact.
My 8 month old indoor handicapped chicken passed suddenly. My only family had Covid when she passed. Is it possible that she caught the virus?
Chickens can get a coronavirus, but it is NOT the covid coronavirus. You can’t give it to chickens or get it from them.
This same thing happened to me this week with my 5 month old chicken and I was thinking that maybe it just has not been experienced enough to confirm for sure! I don’t know, but anything is possible! Just a coincidence maybe until it happens to others too?
I’ve had chickens all my life. Since the Covid 19 outbreak I have had to deal with sick chickens of an unknown source. Chickens in the same pen, some get sick & die, some get sick & recover, then some never get sick at all.. All chicken sickness I’ve had in the past if one got it they all got it if in the same coop eating & drinking from the same bowls. I can’t say for sure that this new sickness is in fact Covid 19 but it has all the signs of it….
I don’t know what health issue your flock has, but I assure you, chickens cannot get COVID-19. The research indicates that they cannot even be experimentally infected.
There is a newly published study in a virology journal (from 9/23) that chickens do in fact have ACE2 and AXL receptors in their tissues, to which the SARS-Co-V-2 can attach. The latest Variant of Concern, JN.1, is highly infectious due to several mutations in the viral coat protein. I was very ill with COVID for the first week of January, while my indoor pet chicken, Pearl, was recovering from eye surgery/infection. So she was immunocompromised while I was shedding the virus. Practically overnight, Pearl developed lethargy, acute respiratory symptoms (gasping) and her comb turned pale and yellowish. I got her in to my vet by noon, but Pearl had 2 seizures and died suddenly on January 13, 2024. Like others are reporting, I’m not sure that’s a “coincidence” that it happened within 7-10 days of my initial COVID infection. Pearl was on broad spectrum antibiotics that would have prevented a non-viral respiratory infection. My vet pulled a blood sample, because I believe that further investigation is needed.
I’d like to see the article – do you have a citation?
I’ve tried to find it and found this, but still looking:
Companion animals likely do not spread COVID-19 but may get infected themselves – Review
Volume 42, pages 1229–1236, (2020)
Recent evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2, similar to other coronaviruses, can infect several species of animals, including companion animals such as dogs, cats, and ferrets although their viral loads remain low. While the main source of infection transmission therefore is human to human, there are a few rare cases of pets contracting the infection from a SARS-CoV-2-infected human. Although there is no evidence that pets actively transmit SARS-CoV-2 via animal-to-human transmission, senior pet ownership potentially may pose a small risk to older adults by potentially enabling animal-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the most vulnerable population and by increasing the exposition risk for the elderly due to the necessity to care for the pet and, in the case of dogs, to take them outside the house several times per day. In this overview, the available evidence on SARS-CoV-2 infection in pets is considered and the potential for the spread of COVID-19 from companion animals to older individuals and the importance of prevention are discussed.
Another article: Animal reservoirs of SARS-CoV-2: calculable COVID-19 risk for older adults from animal to human transmission – Review
Published: 30 August 2021
Volume 43, pages 2305–2320, (2021)
The current COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the highly contagious respiratory pathogen SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), has already claimed close to three million lives. SARS-CoV-2 is a zoonotic disease: it emerged from a bat reservoir and it can infect a number of agricultural and companion animal species. SARS-CoV-2 can cause respiratory and intestinal infections, and potentially systemic multi-organ disease, in both humans and animals. The risk for severe illness and death with COVID-19 significantly increases with age, with older adults at highest risk. To combat the pandemic and protect the most susceptible group of older adults, understanding the human-animal interface and its relevance to disease transmission is vitally important. Currently high infection numbers are being sustained via human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Yet, identifying potential animal reservoirs and potential vectors of the disease will contribute to stronger risk assessment strategies. In this review, the current information about SARS-CoV-2 infection in animals and the potential spread of SARS-CoV-2 to humans through contact with domestic animals (including dogs, cats, ferrets, hamsters), agricultural animals (e.g., farmed minks), laboratory animals, wild animals (e.g., deer mice), and zoo animals (felines, non-human primates) are discussed with a special focus on reducing mortality in older adults.
Most recent research published – Susceptibility of domestic and companion animals to SARS-CoV-2: a comprehensive review
Published: 01 February 2023
Volume 55, article number 60, (2023)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11250-023-03470-1
Abstract: The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has caused a large global outbreak. The reports of domestic animals’ infection with SARS-CoV-2 raise concerns about the virus’s longer-lasting spread, the establishment of a new host reservoir, or even the evolution of a new virus, as seen with COVID-19. In this review, we focus on the susceptibility of domestic animals, especially companion animals, towards SARS-CoV-2 in light of existing studies of natural infection, experimental infection, and serological surveys.
Wild and domestic poultry has been the subject of inter-species transmission of CoVs (Zhuang et al. 2020). So far, susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 has not been reported in avian species. The phylogenetic investigation of pigeon ACE-2 receptors showed bounding potential to SARS-CoV-2 (Qiu et al. 2020). However, experimental inoculation with SARSCoV-2 has not resulted in immunological response or viral replication in poultry, including chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks, quail, and pigeons (Mathavarajah and Dellaire 2020; Schlottau et al. 2020; Shi et al. 2020; Suarez et al. 2020).