Dying chickens

[TerryH]

Came home to find one of the BO's dead in the coop. I could find nothing wrong what so ever with the BO. No mites, perfectly clean vent, feet etc... Nothing. Now our beloved #7 is bad. #7 has very labored breathing and had yellow and green poop on he feathers at the vent. Any help is appreciated.

 

[TerryH]

I decided that a video would be a better platform to show what I see going on with the chip pile instead of photos. Her is my disclaimer. I am not a scientist. These are simply my own opinions based on what I see. I could be totally wrong. I will update once the cultures that the U of A Poultry Science Department are currently doing are complete and I get that information.

Video attached...

[VIDEO]

 

[Beekissed]

@Beekissed I know you use chips ...any thoughts or issues you have seen that are similar?

Yes, I've used them....never freshly chipped up piles, though. Too hot~literally...you can hold your hand over the pile and feel the heat coming off the pile~and too wet for use in a coop or run when they are fresh. I also didn't use just a layer of wood chips....I always stress to everyone to use a variety of materials for good deep litter...the more variety the better. Then these layers are built gradually, like lasagna gardening, by adding dry material as needed when top layers become too moist. If my coop is dry and not holding good humidity to the mass, I'll add wood chips to hold more moisture into the pack.

I've never had any illness nor even respiratory symptoms from using deep litter in the coop and didn't when I put wood chips in there either. Never heard of anyone reporting any issues about such things until now.

As I see it, this is a special set of circumstances....newly chopped chips, small area of confinement compared to stocking numbers, right weather conditions for high fungal growth and birds that are susceptible to disease or illness actually getting an illness and dying from it. The rest of the flock showed no signs of any Aspergillus, so one cannot blame the chips for chicken death exclusively....birds with weak immune systems will eventually die from one of the million and one fungi, bacteria, etc. that are and will be in their environment and that's not too uncommon at all. Happens all the time all over the world for various and sundry reasons.

This statement made earlier in the thread is quite apt....

Quote:
Conditions were right, freshly chopped trees were used, which creates a heat and humidity to the materials~especially when piled or kept thickly layered~that would promote rapid fungal growth. Then a ground dwelling bird was placed on this hot, moist material filled with fungus and couldn't get off it...as that heat rose from the litter, so did the fungal spores. Then birds that already had compromised immune systems were present in that group of birds and died from the experience. Most lived and didn't have any evidence of the Aspergillus in their systems when swabbed...that tells me that, though the fungus was instrumental in their deaths, it wasn't the only cause or all the birds would have had it and sickened or died.

The thing with deep litter is knowing when to use what kind of materials....folks in arid climates can get by with adding moist, humid bedding to counteract the dry, arid conditions in their coops while folks living in humid, hot areas are better using naturally dry and more woody materials to combat the natural humidity in their coops and runs...that would include woody stems of plant matter, dry and cured out wood chips, pine shavings, dry leaves, twigs, corn stalks, hay, etc. Trying to avoid materials that are moist or hold their own moisture like hay, grass, fresh wood chip with the green (leaves)chipped in, etc.

I wouldn't take this one incident and tell folks that they shouldn't ever use wood chips in their runs for deep litter....but I will be telling them not to use freshly chipped trees as their only deep litter material and especially not in the summer months or during any humid weather conditions.

 

[TerryH]

It looks like she is gasping, possibly from a respiratory disease. Does her face or eyes look puffy? Tylan and oxytetracycline can help treat a respiratory disease. Respiratory diseases can be caused by bacteria, viruses, and mold fungus. Gapeworm or capillary worm can cause breathing problems. SafeGuard liquid goat wormer given 1/4 ml per pound orally for 5 days can treat those worms.

Thank you. She is breathing easier now. We have her in the house for tonight. I have NutriDrench but can't get her to drink. The BO that I found dead in the coop looked perfectly fine. No sign of anything. This BA definitely had some gross looking poop on her. We have that cleaned up now. Loose, yellow and some green. No blood. Her face/eyes do not look puffy. I am at a total loss other than there is something in the wood chips I put run the run on Saturday. The chip pile was pretty hot when I started digging in it to move the chips to the run. There was lots of green leaves when we first got it. I'm going to keep the other 6 in the coop tomorrow. I see no sign of anything wrong with any of them. I'll remove the wood chips when I get home from work tomorrow just to be safe.

Thanks again for your help. This is all new to me.

 

[TerryH]

Thanks everyone for all the kind words, comments, thoughts and prayers. Cheryl and I appreciate you all very much. To be quite honest, I am still reeling from it all. My heart is hurt. I can't get my head around all the researching, reading and working so hard to try and make things perfect for the chickens and for Cheryl to have her perfect spot to raise her chickens only to have this happen. All of them are important but the loss of #7 is a bitter pill for me to swallow. It has not been a fun week of chicken keeping.

The guys from the U of A made it clear that once Aspergillus is growing in the air sacs, lungs or other internal organs there is nothing that can be done. The swabs and inspections confirmed that all of them were in absolutely perfect health up to that point. The remaining 6 seem fine today. I have great hope that they will be ok.

So this morning once again we set out to endeavor to do everything we can to make it right and safe for the remaining 6. Cheryl and I decided that even though I had already shoveled 99.9% of the wood chips out of the run and the U of A guys had given their approval to the area, we would not settle for anything less than to clean every single wood chip and sliver of anything foreign from the run and scrape the ground. More of a project than one would think but we completed that task and disposed of that material. We cleaned all the shavings and PDZ from the coop and moved that material to the run. We thoroughly cleaned everything and added fresh bags of shavings to the run and the coop. Fresh PDZ on the poop tray.

We had moved the girls out to the chicken yard while we worked and they were obviously very happy to be out of the coop. Once we completed the work we let them back into the run and they immediately began to dig dust baths and had quite a time running around and playing. It was nice to sit with them. I feel like we have done everything we possibly can to mitigate the fungus issue. I suppose time will tell.

The run after cleaning.



And the run after loading the pine shavings back in and the girls enjoying being out of the coop.

 

[Molpet]

@Beekissed I know you use chips ...any thoughts or issues you have seen that are similar?

 

[TerryH]

Continuing to update.

From Dr. Clark today...


"Just got the info on fecal cultures from your birds, isolated from tissues and isolates from litter
No salmonella isolated. Aspergillus, rhizopus, mold and yeasts isolated."

All directly related to the wood chips per Dr. Clark. No other factors or issues involved.

 

[Beekissed]

I learned so much from your posts. So sorry you went through this horrible experience, but you probably saved a lot of chicken lives. I'm leaving my run just plain dirt.

That's what I was afraid that people would take away from this incident. It's unknown just how many chickens die per year from the unhealthy environment of a plain dirt run...that barren moonscape of over impacted earth that is devoid of healthy bacteria and fungus due to the inability to drain properly and the imbalance of nitrogen in the soils.

A healthy DL can renew those soils and help prevent the less beneficial bacteria and fungi from establishing in those soils, not to mention decrease the overgrowth of cocci in those same soils.

For this one incident of unfortunate conditions not typical to the ordinary DL, there are likely many thousands of flocks living a happy and healthy existence on well maintained DL in the coop and runs. One cannot take this one incident and say that bare dirt runs are healthier than cultured deep litter.

 

[aart]

Quote: You can lead the 'horses' to water, but you can't make them think<shrugs>

 

[electrycmonk]

What a simply amazing thread. The humanity, the wisdom, the intelligent dialogue & the compassion.

I wonder if the BYC forum has a special archive like most gearhead forums have for knowledge gained & shared? I need to use the desktop version as the mobile version I'm replying with is very hard to navigate for me at this very early point in my learning curve.