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Gumboro Disease or Infectious Bursal Disease or IBD is an immuno-suppressive viral disease of young chickens. This disease commonly hits gamebirds from the age of 3 weeks old to 3 months old. This can happen earlier or even until the age of about 4 1/2 months.

The IBD virus destroys the Bursa of Fabricius which is part of the immune system of birds. The effect is similar to the disease AIDS in humans, so some veterinarians call this disease AIDS of chickens.

The common symptoms of the disease are birds with raised feathers, lethargic, sometimes they even shiver. You will also see wet white droppings which often soil the feathers in the vent area. The photo above is how a bird with Gumboro typically looks like.

Being a viral disease, the only way to protect your flock is thru vaccination. Normally, we don't want to administer the vaccine if the disease is not present in the farm. Being a veterinarian and a breeder at the same time, I would recommend that you put this as part of your core vaccine program for it will be too costly and devastating if your farm gets hit by Gumboro. It can wipe out your whole breeding production for the season. Mortalities reach as high as 90% based on the farms I have visited that were affected by this disease.

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