Chicks dying

[chickymommy]

Day 7 of corrid.  Should this be the final day or have I gone a day too long?

Day 7 is the end. Wait two weeks and then repeat. Make sure to add electrolytes (sp?) to the water now that your done with the meds.

 

[brianb88]

3rd day of Duramycin-10 treatment. 5 week old chick still about the same...eating, drinking water, poop looks healthy, active and responsive. Still wheezing though and the one eye is still shut more often than not. the symptoms do not fit anything I've found. they fit some of many things but very non-specific. I am at a loss. I've changed brooders and cleaned the one it is in and only have a 60 watt light placed 3' above the floor of the brooder. It is still in the garage and has plenty of ventilation with an average temp of 78-82 degrees.

At this point I know I'm going to get more chicks but am now worried about my chick being a carrier of ??? and am also worried about introducing "strangers" to the one that is surviving(so far).

Any thoughts are encouraged. Please..

 

[Laurafay4]

Gotta love that there are trolls even on a chicken forum. The truth is, you can read all the books, buy all the products, and keep your brooder sparkling, which I can attest to doing, and not one book makes a statement about the morality rate of chickies. Unfortunately, all we can do is our best.

That said, all I have read encourages a 30 day period before introducing new flock members. They all state the cocci risk drops severely after 14 weeks. You can order from same place and so the exposure at birh would be similar to what your chicks received

 

[kharlex85]

Why is it necesary to repeat in two weeks?

 

[cafarmgirl]

Well the one left seems to be over the cocci and is eating and drinking well but now has an eye that is shut and wheezes a little when roosting. There is no foul odor. I suspect a respiratory infection. That is what I thought the first one had and was treating them all for that last weekend. I have started it on Duramycin-10. I'll post the results.

Sometimes it is easier to ask a question and get a quick answer from someone that has had a similar situation than it is to sift through pages and pages looking for a specific answer to a quickly developing problem. When symptoms are vague remedies are many and varying. But thanks anyway for the constructive criticism.

This is very true. Many times it can be very hard to pin point a specific diagnosis, all you can do is treat for what seems most obvious and just keep trying. Things aren't always cut and dried so to speak and most of us here, regardless of how long we've had chickens and how much experience we've had, have at times been baffled by symptoms and just had to try various things and see what helps or doesn't.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I guess this is why they sell medicated chick starter - they probably figure put the antibiotic in the feed to combat cocci right off the bat. ...

The antibiotics that come in chick starters will kill the weakened vaccine organisms that some chicks are inoculated with at the hatchery before your chicks develop an immunity to these organisms.

Therefor the medicated food interferes with or cancels your chicks' vaccinations or immunizations resulting in no protection against some chick-hood diseases.

Check with the hatchery and find out what if anything your chicks are inoculated against or with before purchasing chick starter then do your homework and enjoy healthier fowl.

 

[casportpony]

The antibiotics that come in chick starters will kill the weakened vaccine organisms that some chicks are inoculated with at the hatchery before your chicks develop an immunity to these organisms.

Therefor the medicated food interferes with or cancels your chicks' vaccinations or immunizations resulting in no protection against some chick-hood diseases.

Check with the hatchery and find out what if anything your chicks are inoculated against or with before purchasing chick starter then do your homework and enjoy healthier fowl.

Amprolium is a cocci-stat, not an antibiotic.

 

[brianb88]

Well I just lost the last BCM that survived the cocci and what I thought was a respiratory infection. I happened to be out by the coop changing water and she just flipped over on her back and died. I am at a complete loss as to what caused this. None of them had ever been exposed to other chickens in fact she was the first chicken to ever inhabit the coop and run that I built. I had fed her out oats out of my hand this morning and she seemed fine.

My concern now is if I get more chicks or chickens will my coop be safe to put them in? The chicks that died of cocci never made it to the coop. They were all still in the brooder. Do I need to disinfect the coop and if so how? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[JulyBlizzard]

Thanks chickengeorgeto, I've changed their meds to Corid only. I only gave them Duramycin-10 yesterday and it didn't help much. I'm no vet but with the help of the good people on this site I'm pretty sure they have cocci and am now treating them for that. The sickest one seems to be doing some better. It has gotten of the floor of the brooder and is now perched on the roost. I'm still feeding it with a syringe but it has a little more pep than before. Thank you all for the information.

This is why before knowing what is wrong with animals 1)you do not right away go to antibiotics and 2) Make sure to give them the full dose of antibiotics because if there is one illness the stress can lead to immune system compromise. In other words a low antibiotic treatment can result in so called super bugs or bacteria that become resistant to antibiotics because you did not use a full cycle to insure killing them off.

 

[JulyBlizzard]

It would depend on what your brooder set up is. Personally when I invited disease into my brooder in early spring I culled every bird and burnt the brooder.

I am sorry for your loss. It sucks. The thing to remember is that besides a few diseases most of these bacteria and micro species are always present. Healthy birds will develop immunity to them. Some are better not dealt with if it is at all possible. That's my opinion. What do you have with medicated birds and the breeding them? An increase in birds bred that can't handle the world they are borne means they become dependent on our care ever more so. That will mean more heart break. There are times when therapies can be called for and used.