Infectious synovitis is an acute to chronic, systemic disease of chickens caused by infection with
Mycoplasma synoviae (MS). The chicken is often sub clinically infected, until a stressful event occurs which causes the infection to become systemic, affecting the synovial membrane of joints and tendons.
Clinical Signs
Chickens with infectious synovitis develop swollen, red, and warm hock joints. They are in so much pain it is difficult for them to walk. The synovial membranes of tendon sheaths become thickened, edematous, with fibrinous exudates accumulating within and around the tendon sheaths.
Transmission
Sources of infection include latently and chronically infected birds (domestic chickens and turkeys or wild birds). It spreads vertically (from breeding parents to offspring) and horizontally both directly from bird to bird and can be indirectly spread by living and inanimate vectors. Within a flock the spread of the pathogen is normally slow.
M. synoviae doesn't survive for very long in the environment, and only remains infective for a couple of hours to days.
Icubation Period
The incubation period for infectious synovitis is approximately 11 to 21 days.
Diagnosis
Your veterinarian will need to take a culture of the bird's joint fluid. This is done by performing a joint aspiration, where they will remove the fluid from the affected joint using a needle and syringe. Joint aspiration can also relieve pressure due to fluid collecting around the joint. After collecting the sample, your veterinarian will send it to a diagnostic laboratory for testing.
There are several different testing methods offered by diagnostic laboratories, used for detection of MS infection in chickens. The methods recommended by the OIE for MS detection include bacterial isolation, serological assays, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). MS isolation is considered to be the gold standard method for MS detection. However it is a slow process and can take up to 28 days to confirm. MS is isolated through the use of a culture performed on a tissue sample, such as joint fluid, from the affected chicken. Other methods include:
- Serological assays: Serological tests are used to detect the presence of antibodies in the chicken's serum. Serum is the straw-colored liquid fraction of blood plasma from which clotting factors have been removed. There are several serological tests available that are used to detect MS, however due to variations in specificity and sensitivity, they are typically recommended primarily for flock screening, rather than for testing individual birds. Some of the more commonly used tests are the hemagglutination-inhibition (HI) assay, plate agglutination assay, enzyme labeled immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and the rapid serum agglutination (RSA) test.
- Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay: The PCR assay is a molecular based technique which has become increasingly popular. It works by targeting and detecting specific nucleic acid sequences, and is able to provide results in less than 24 hours.
Treatment
Treated chickens often have a slow recovery. There are several antibiotics that can be used, however each with varying effectiveness. The injectable forms of antibiotics such as tylosin, erythromycin, spectinomycin, or chlortectracycline have proven to be more effective than those administered in drinking water or feed.
