Silkie thread!

[ronkonkoma]

Tshirt I had made for my daughter for Christmas. From marshmallow, freckles, shadow, Jeff, jake, Bella, princess, Maisy, holly and jolly!

 

[AnneInTheBurbs]

@lilpeepers, thanks, I forgot about chick starter for broody hens. I will get some later today. It was four years ago that Thyme, our only hen to go broody before, hatched and raised BC and LC (Things One and Two), two nearly identical NH roosters. BC is the father of two of the eggs under the broody while the moms are pullets from the chicks we got from Ideal Poultry in May. I choose three eggs for breakfast this morning that were laid yesterday and looked as much as possible like the three under the broody. Two of the three were definitely fertile and the other was iffy. Now I am not worrying that she may be disappointed by setting on infertile eggs.

Since Thyme never went broody again, we had a local farmer put a dozen eggs fathered by Mr. Milquetoast, the BR rooster in my avatar, in his incubator. A rooster and hen from that hatch are the parents of the other egg under the broody.

I need to decide on names for the Silkies now that I know that they are all pullets. I had been using spice and herb names for the hens but white ones aren't as common. I am leaning towards Arrowroot for the broody as her comb looks a lot like an arrow. I am considering Tapioca for the smallest one, Yucca for the bearded one, and maybe Peppermint for the one with a red spot for a comb.

I was going to suggest mash mallow too. How about parsnip? Or Milkweed?

Our first eggs ever! On the right. Store bought on left. Not bad!

Awesome! Congrats! Once you have your own, the store bought will be terrible. Welcome to being an egg snob!

 

[Sylvester017]

The great thing about Denagard is there is NO resistance. Don't mean to repeat if this was already said I'm behind on this thread.

I have become a believer about Denagard after much research and gave my vet a reference to it. He wasn't surprised that the U.K. is on top of backyard chicken care since that is a very popular hobby for Brits and they are very knowledgeable on using livestock medicines off-label for their flocks. He's still cautious about over-medicating non-symptom birds but then that's his job as a vet to give cautionary advise. His job in the poultry industry years ago has made him wary about over-treatments given to heavy broiler chickens and laying hens because of their mass production and he still feels backyard pets don't need that kind of concentrated preventative treatment. That's why I was thinking to only use Denagard during stress times in the flock although it sounds like Denagard is good on the "no resistance" points in the research I covered - but there are some cautions about over-use in certain scenarios. I am fairly certain it is safe even though classified as a synthetic antibiotic.

The one thing I can't get a clear answer on is if the eggs can or cannot be eaten during the Denagard 8cc/gal once-a-month preventative treatments or during the 16cc/gal illness treatments during an outbreak (although my CRD Silkie doesn't lay eggs during symptoms and only after she's had Baytril and Tylan treatments will she resume laying again). Do you have any input about eating the eggs? We don't eat eggs after Baytril or Tylan medication except maybe to boil the eggs and feed them back to the hens for extra protein since they are being treated with antibiotic anyway but I get conflicting advice regarding the safety of consuming eggs after Denagard (tiamulin) treatments. According to tiamulin reports - even though it is a synthetic antibiotic - about 90% of it passes through urine/feces excretion and that there's little to no-tissue retention which makes it sound safe to me to eat the eggs but then I'm not a knowledgeable chemist or medical professional.

There are definitely warnings not to use Denagard mixed with certain other medications but in my case I would consult with the vet before doing something like that. I'm just so glad he has had experience with poultry in his history and that he treats more than dogs/cats in his practice.

And please feel free to give input. We Silkie lovers want to get the best knowledge and absorb all the experiences we can learn for our precious fluffy Muppets!

 

[Suzierd]

I have become a believer about Denagard after much research and gave my vet a reference to it.  He wasn't surprised that the U.K. is on top of backyard chicken care since that is a very popular hobby for Brits and they are very knowledgeable on using livestock medicines off-label for their flocks.  He's still cautious about over-medicating non-symptom birds but then that's his job as a vet to give cautionary advise.  His job in the poultry industry years ago has made him wary about over-treatments given to heavy broiler chickens and laying hens because of their mass production and he still feels backyard pets don't need that kind of concentrated preventative treatment.  That's why I was thinking to only use Denagard during stress times in the flock although it sounds like Denagard is good on the "no resistance" points in the research I covered - but there are some cautions about over-use in certain scenarios.  I am fairly certain it is safe even though classified as a synthetic antibiotic.

The one thing I can't get a clear answer on is if the eggs can or cannot be eaten during the Denagard 8cc/gal once-a-month preventative treatments or during the 16cc/gal illness treatments during an outbreak (although my CRD Silkie doesn't lay eggs during symptoms and only after she's had Baytril and Tylan treatments will she resume laying again).  [COLOR=FF0000]Do you have any input about eating the eggs?[/COLOR]  We don't eat eggs after Baytril or Tylan medication except maybe to boil the eggs and feed them back to the hens for extra protein since they are being treated with antibiotic anyway but I get conflicting advice regarding the safety of consuming eggs after Denagard (tiamulin) treatments.  According to tiamulin reports - even though it is a synthetic antibiotic - about 90% of it passes through urine/feces excretion and that there's little to no-tissue retention which makes it sound safe to me to eat the eggs but then I'm not a knowledgeable chemist or medical professional. 

There are definitely warnings not to use Denagard mixed with certain other medications but in my case I would consult with the vet before doing something like that.  I'm just so glad he has had experience with poultry in his history and that he treats more than dogs/cats in his practice.

And please feel free to give input.  We Silkie lovers want to get the best knowledge and absorb all the experiences we can learn for our precious fluffy Muppets!

From what I read there is no egg withdraw. If you worry you could toss the eggs for seven days.

 

[Sylvester017]

From what I read there is no egg withdraw. If you worry you could toss the eggs for seven days.

Never mind - but thank you so-o-o much anyway!

I just found the website that suggests a 2-day withdrawal for eating the chicken for meat, 5-day withdrawal for eating turkey, and 0-days withdrawal regarding the eggs!

http://www.interchemie.com/veterinary-products/poultry/tiamulin-oral.html

 

[Sylvester017]

From what I read there is no egg withdraw. If you worry you could toss the eggs for seven days.

Treatment on the website link regarding tiamulin also suggested 3-5 days for treatment yet some BYC posters suggested as much as 7 days or more each month for prevention and 10-14 days for treatment of an outbreak. Here I go with another confusion as to how many days to treat for prevention and how many for an outbreak treatment. I know the dosage is doubled for outbreak treatments but the number of days to use Denagard is conflicting.

 

[Suzierd]

Treatment on the website link regarding tiamulin also suggested 3-5 days for treatment yet some BYC posters suggested as much as 7 days or more each month for prevention and 10-14 days for treatment of an outbreak.  Here I go with another confusion as to how many days to treat for prevention and how many for an outbreak treatment.  I know the dosage is doubled for outbreak treatments but the number of days to use Denagard is conflicting.

This is just my two cents and from someone who hasn't been there dealing with this. That being said it sounds like you don't have a really bad strain of the disease I feel if you did you would see it in more then one chicken. If it where me I would start out with the five day preventive dose after she is healthy again and see if that works well for you. If less works why use More? And I'm not sure if you already said forgive my memory if you did but are you positive your dealing with MG/MS? Have you had her tested. If I remember right Denagard only works on Mycoplasma disease and with only one chicken getting sick you would want to be sure to rule out anything else causing it for example sinsitive to molds/fungus? Again just my thoughts for what it's worth. I'm sure you will make the right decisions for your peeps.

 

[Fancychooklady]

Hi guys, way too many posts to catch up on. @Sylvester017 sorry to hear of your dramas. I have had experience with MG and it isn't nice. Be mindful that the use of any antibiotics leaves you at risk of consuming traces of the drug. I have VRE and do not eat any eggs from treated birds. Just my opinion but treating birds that aren't symptomatic makes no sense to me. I wait for symptoms and then treat with a gram positive antibiotic. The birds that I brought in with disease have never been integrated with the flock and in an 18 month period I have seen symptoms reoccur twice. Suzie is correct in saying that without a proper diagnosis we are just assuming that we are dealing with MG. There are other disease with similar symptoms, coryza, infectious laryngitis and upper respiratory symptoms in general can be triggered by stress, mites, lice, too much ammonia rising in the coop at night and so on ................

 

[Sylvester017]

This is just my two cents and from someone who hasn't been there dealing with this. That being said it sounds like you don't have a really bad strain of the disease I feel if you did you would see it in more then one chicken. If it where me I would start out with the five day preventive dose after she is healthy again and see if that works well for you. If less works why use More? And I'm not sure if you already said forgive my memory if you did but are you positive your dealing with MG/MS? Have you had her tested. If I remember right Denagard only works on Mycoplasma disease and with only one chicken getting sick you would want to be sure to rule out anything else causing it for example sinsitive to molds/fungus? Again just my thoughts for what it's worth. I'm sure you will make the right decisions for your peeps.

Thank you for the input!

The Silkie was tested last year and it was the vet's diagnosis then. So many chicken diseases manifest identical respiratory symptoms - worms can exhibit similar symptoms so a fecal test was also done. The symptoms from CRD are scary when the voice goes hoarse, the trachea/esophagus gets sore/swollen, the appetite gets suppressed, the breathing becomes labored, wheezing, sneezing, coughing, strong frequent head-shaking, and if untreated goes into watery eyes/nostrils, severe diarrhea, no food intake, and of course all leading to death. I've researched that some birds that are carriers can just keel over dead suddenly even without ever exhibiting an outbreak.

I personally consider MG/MS silent killers and at the very least an egg-production nuisance. Having a bird come down with actual symptoms that can be treatably controlled is better than watching a flock cease laying with no obvious reason or worse by unexpectedly dying when never showing evidence of illness. Since treating the others in the flock with Tylan our other Silkie resumed laying again and she has always been my worst layer so latent CRD seems to interfere with healthy egg production as well. As pullets all our hens were great layers and then we noticed their molts were very stressful and their 2nd year egg production less than satisfactory. You expect less eggs each successive year but one 2-year Silkie didn't lay again for over 6 months. One of the Leghorns had a very severe first molt and when she resumed laying her production dropped significantly for a prolific breed so I now suspect the latent CRD. We do vitamin supplementation and that helped flock immunity but now we know we have CRD and have hind-sight as to smaller problems we were having. With a new plan of action we'll monitor how/if past performance and health/immunity improves or not.

Our sick Silkie has cost us a fortune in vet bills this past year. Since her symptoms were identical this year again she was given a longer treatment time. And CRD is latent in about 98% of USA flocks even if symptoms don't ever manifest in the carriers. Some chicken breeds like the gorgeous Breda are unfortunately sensitive to CRD outbreaks and guess what breed I'm getting next Spring! - sort of susceptible the way Rottweiler pups are particularly susceptible to Parvo infections (every Rott we owned contracted Parvo and other Rott owners I've asked coincidentally said their pups had it too in spite of immunization/prevention).

Because it's time consuming and/or costly to treat CRD symptoms flock breeders will kill or let sick birds die that they know have no "cure" anyway to weed out less immune stock from their breeding program to stop the transfer of Mycoplasma to hatching eggs or new chicks. Or they cull an entire flock to restart with a new group of hopefully uninfected stock. When you think about the difficulties of raising/breeding poultry you get a new respect for the prices breeders charge for their birds. It kind of makes sense why poultry isn't kept much past their 2nd year of age with so many challenges to tackle like preventative health maintenance, disease treatment/prevention, maintenance costs, housing, feed, etc. It's just easier to kill or let the sick ones die especially if they contract something incureable anyway. Backyard chicken owners on the other hand might spend hundreds saving/treating their beloved pets to the best of their ability.

Backyard breeders approach poultry more from a humanely practical view while pet owners approach from an emotional/nurturing view and neither should ever consider criticiziing the other. There is merit in both approaches.

 

[ChickenLady2014]

Our first eggs ever! On the right. Store bought on left. Not bad!

Yay ~ Congrats