Poultry Health (FutureLearn)

Grow your understanding of poultry health and effective treatments

This course will help both small animal vets and the large number of pet owners who keep poultry. Small animal vets often feel poorly prepared for treating sick birds and lack knowledge of the treatment options available to them.

Likewise, new owners may be unaware of diseases and predators which may harm their birds, and may not have access to veterinarians who are sufficiently knowledgeable.

Understand chicken anatomy and poultry disease

You’ll learn how to identify the key anatomical features of chickens, including major organs and organ systems.

Alongside specialists at the University of Nottingham, you’ll identify how to diagnose the main clinical features of illness within poultry, as well as the diseases that affect them, and determine at what point a vet needs to be consulted.

You’ll come away with a practical understanding of how to reduce the risk of animal disease impacting public health, the key responsibilities of people keeping non-commercial poultry, and the main pieces of legislation that apply to them.

Syllabus

Week 1: Introduction

Week 2: What poultry need and how do you handle them correctly

Week 3: Infectious diseases of poultry

Week 4: Non-infectious diseases of poultry

Week 5: Interaction with the vet

Week 6: Surgical case studies

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

- Describe the lifecycle of poultry, and the differences between commercial and non-commercial birds.

- Describe the key requirements of poultry regarding their housing, biosecurity, nutrition and protection from predators.

- Evaluate a bird's general health and identify the key signs which indicate poor health.

- Discuss the main categories of infectious disease affecting poultry, including examples of pathogens causing respiratory, gastrointestinal, reproductive, and dermatological infections.

- Discuss the main categories of non-infectious disease affecting poultry, including examples of skeletal, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, and dietary/nutritional disorders.

- Discuss the importance of vaccination in disease control.

- Describe the key features of avian immunity and how this differs from mammalian immunity.

- Discuss the role of antimicrobials in disease treatment, and the impact of antimicrobial resistance.

- Discuss the main diseases likely to present in backyard poultry in a small animal clinic and the decision process of how each condition could be managed.