- Apr 19, 2013
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Opinions, please.
I have had a really awful winter healthwise with my chickens.
In January I received two 8-month old pullets (not Ameraucanas) in the mail from a breeder. They were both in the same cardboard shipping box and there really was not enough ventilation. One coughed. I took it to a farm vet, he gave it one antibiotic shot (Baytril) but the bird got sicker and sicker. I found an avian vet who had wanted to be a poultry pathologist when at university wanted but decided he didn't want to only work with dead chickens so became an avian vet (he is a few hours short of a degree in poultry science). Did I luck out on my avian vet choice!
He said "shipping fever" and put her on Tylan dissolved in massive amounts of sugar to mask the very bitter taste. She recovered with a bit of a gassy crop (probably candida overgrowth from the antibiotics and sugar) which was treated with Nystatin. Both new birds were kept in quarantine.
Two days after seeing the avian vet, we had a wicked cold front swoop down and I battened the coops up too tightly. I knew I had made a mistake when I was greeted by warm moist air when I opened them up the next morning....and a few coughs.
Not sure if the coughs were simply from poor ventilation or a disease brought by the quarantined birds, I put everyone on Tylan for five days.
At the same time, I separated the two Ameraucana pullets from the free ranging flock (and cockerels) as I wanted to show them this month. They went into a bare garden with dried stalks and hay for bedding in the little coop. Unbeknownst to me, they ate a lot of hay and ended up with a severely compacted crops. They were really sick.
Around that time, I also vaccinated for Laryngotracheitis (live virus from tissue culture).
I ended up taking the compacted crop Ameraucanas to the avian vet who had me tube water into their crop with gentle massaging. Feed was changed to spinach and scratch. Both ended up on Nystatin as well.
One has a crop that is still very gassy. We have given her a lot of Nystatin (an antifungal) but that isn't solving the problem, so we are trying to change the PH in the crop to get rid of whatever organism that fermenting food in her crop plus adding an infant colic medicine which will break up the gas bubbles into small bubbles.
The other Ameraucana's crop has resolved but yesterday she had a prolapse--no egg laid but a prolapse. She has been in a show cage in quarantine in the garage (quarantined because she has been exposed to the new birds who have been to shows and are in quarantine) for at least a month. She has not laid any eggs. I suspect I need to cull her today, but when I went in this morning, the prolapse was gone and to be honest, I just don't want to do it. I am sick about it.
I also have just culled a Polish about a week ago for egg binding issues. I don't have many laying-age birds, only 14 before I culled the Polish, so two with egg laying problems is a huge number. The Polish had an extremely narrow pelvis, and last fall before she started laying I thought she was an egg bound chicken waiting for the egg. Sadly, she laid my biggest eggs, so maybe her demise is to be expected. I certainly expected it when I looked her over last fall.
However, I have seen it mentioned in the literature that egg laying problems can be related to respiratory infection and vaccinations.
I will be calling my vet today, but I am not thrilled with the number of times the vet has seen my chickens.
I would appreciate any suggestions or thoughts. Thanks.
I have had a really awful winter healthwise with my chickens.
In January I received two 8-month old pullets (not Ameraucanas) in the mail from a breeder. They were both in the same cardboard shipping box and there really was not enough ventilation. One coughed. I took it to a farm vet, he gave it one antibiotic shot (Baytril) but the bird got sicker and sicker. I found an avian vet who had wanted to be a poultry pathologist when at university wanted but decided he didn't want to only work with dead chickens so became an avian vet (he is a few hours short of a degree in poultry science). Did I luck out on my avian vet choice!
He said "shipping fever" and put her on Tylan dissolved in massive amounts of sugar to mask the very bitter taste. She recovered with a bit of a gassy crop (probably candida overgrowth from the antibiotics and sugar) which was treated with Nystatin. Both new birds were kept in quarantine.
Two days after seeing the avian vet, we had a wicked cold front swoop down and I battened the coops up too tightly. I knew I had made a mistake when I was greeted by warm moist air when I opened them up the next morning....and a few coughs.
Not sure if the coughs were simply from poor ventilation or a disease brought by the quarantined birds, I put everyone on Tylan for five days.
At the same time, I separated the two Ameraucana pullets from the free ranging flock (and cockerels) as I wanted to show them this month. They went into a bare garden with dried stalks and hay for bedding in the little coop. Unbeknownst to me, they ate a lot of hay and ended up with a severely compacted crops. They were really sick.
Around that time, I also vaccinated for Laryngotracheitis (live virus from tissue culture).
I ended up taking the compacted crop Ameraucanas to the avian vet who had me tube water into their crop with gentle massaging. Feed was changed to spinach and scratch. Both ended up on Nystatin as well.
One has a crop that is still very gassy. We have given her a lot of Nystatin (an antifungal) but that isn't solving the problem, so we are trying to change the PH in the crop to get rid of whatever organism that fermenting food in her crop plus adding an infant colic medicine which will break up the gas bubbles into small bubbles.
The other Ameraucana's crop has resolved but yesterday she had a prolapse--no egg laid but a prolapse. She has been in a show cage in quarantine in the garage (quarantined because she has been exposed to the new birds who have been to shows and are in quarantine) for at least a month. She has not laid any eggs. I suspect I need to cull her today, but when I went in this morning, the prolapse was gone and to be honest, I just don't want to do it. I am sick about it.
I also have just culled a Polish about a week ago for egg binding issues. I don't have many laying-age birds, only 14 before I culled the Polish, so two with egg laying problems is a huge number. The Polish had an extremely narrow pelvis, and last fall before she started laying I thought she was an egg bound chicken waiting for the egg. Sadly, she laid my biggest eggs, so maybe her demise is to be expected. I certainly expected it when I looked her over last fall.
However, I have seen it mentioned in the literature that egg laying problems can be related to respiratory infection and vaccinations.
I will be calling my vet today, but I am not thrilled with the number of times the vet has seen my chickens.
I would appreciate any suggestions or thoughts. Thanks.
