can chickens catch colds or sicknesses from humans?

[mrs banana]

we don’t feed our feathered girls a lot of table scraps, but depending on the food, have been known to.
yesterday, my human girls had a viral infection that made them little puke machines. today they are better and i am on a mission to fill their bodies with nourishing foods. so i made oatmeal and scrambled eggs, thanks to our feathered girls.
but my eldest wasn’t ready for that much food, and i am wondering if it is ok to give the leftovers to our feathers friends?
i’ve scoured the interwebs, and not found anything helpful, so i thought i would try here.
does anyone know if chickens can catch colds/sicknesses from humans, by eating our leftovers?
or, for future reference as well; can they get sick from us interacting with them when we are sick? (we obviously wash our hands before and after interacting with them, and they pretty much just free range in the backyard. i will make sure they are all in the coop at night, but they generally don’t like to be touched by us, aside from granting us occasional petting sessions.)

thanks in advance!!

~confused in mn

 

[TooCheep]

The simple answer is there is little/no risk. The wiser answer is to be careful.

We all carry microbes (viruses/bacteria/etc) all the time. Some are good, some bad and some are neutral. You cannot totally avoid them and shouldn't try. You would literally die without the beneficial bacteria.

Whenever you handle your chickens (touching them, cleaning coops, etc), it is considered good bio-security to wash afterwards. So any salmonella exposure (most common disease you can get from chickens) is greatly reduced. Your immune system can handle small doses of almost any bad microbes, but has a much harder time if you are exposed to a large dose.

Personally, I wouldn't share any food that your kid handled as it is likely to have a large does of microbes unless you were desperate. This is from an abundance of caution, not from any high likelihood of transmission. It is much lower risk to share foods when you are healthy and aren't carrying large doses of nasties.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Humans and most species have specific viruses and bacteria that can cause sickness within the species. Close association creates a nexus, milk maids in Europe back in the day where their exposure to cow pox generated a weak form of small pox in the maids, immunizing them against virulent small pox and leading to crude but effective live vaccine inoculation for small pox. Or from Africa, bush meat passing along ebola to humans. The virus was common in animals, crossing over only after the bush meat was consumed and likely not well cooked, resulting in a mutation that affected humans. Bats in China, if you believe that origin story....


The main risk to the chickens is bringing in other avian diseases, if you pick up something from a wild bird or their droppings, or from another flock. Washing afterwards is bio security for you, washing before, if you have been around other flocks or wild birds, is for their bio security.

Chickens already carry a ton of disease that is usually kept in check by their immune system. Any stress, moving them to another location, a major change in feed, predators threatening the coop, and their immune system drops enough that something takes hold and next thing you know one is sick, then all of them are sick hours later. This is why you should always quarantine new birds for at least a week before integrating them into the flock.

If you are worried about disease spend more time on bio security including the vermin entering riding on rodents or wild birds. A lot of mite infestations thrive because after treating the flock and coop, nothing is done to prevent more mites being brought in.