- Feb 28, 2012
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In March, we got 33 day old chicks form TSC, they are now 24 weeks old and seem very healthy and active. In early May, we got 24 more chicks from a local hatchery. They are now 16 weeks old. All of my chickens live in the same biulding excluding 4 silkies and one wayandotte they live in a chicken tractor but all of them free range together during the day. On July 24th the youngest chicks were 12 weeks old and the oldest were 19 weeks old..that day, one of the barred rock chicks (one of the younger ones), that the day before seemed healthy, was paralyzed we thought she fell off of the roost or flew into a wall and broke something in her back. She lived for 2 days and we put her down because she was not getting any better and she was just laying in her poop so we thought it would be best to just put her down. 2 weeks after that we had another chicken, a black australorp (again it was one of the younger ones that are now 14 weeks old ) to get sick, for the first day she was just sleepy, she would just stand around with her eyes closed. Early on day 2 she was doing the same thing, then late in day 2 she got paralyzed just like the barred rock 2 weeks earlier. I would stand her up and she would just fall what ever way gravity took her wether it be forword on to her head or back on her butt or just to the side she would fall every time I stood her up. Yet I could lay them on their backs and push on their legs and they would push back, and I pulled on their legs and they would pulled them back. Day 3 she died, so it all happens very quickly from being seemingly healthy and active to being dead in just 3 days. 5 days after the black australop got sick yet another chicken got sick it was again one of the younger ones a light brahma. She has always been on and off sick since we’ve had her, but the last 3 days she was alive she was sick, day 1 just standing around with eyes closed. Day 2 she got outside with the others and was eating grass and bugs but I could tell she was considerably weaker than the others. Day 3, she died during the night...no sings of being paralyzed but I did not get up and check on her during the night so she could have gotten paralyzed. Now for the last week or so one of my speckled sussex (again another young one now 16 weeks old) as been sick but not like the others. She did not just sleep all of the time. She got outside with the others and ran around but I could tell by looking at her she did not feel good...she had her feathers fluffed out a little and sometimes she would stand around sleeping but not as much as the other 3 chicks that died She stil ate and drank and chased bugs and did all the normal chicken things just not as much as the healthy chickens did. She stayed the same for about a week and then last night as I was counting them before I closed the doors for the night, I was missing one, and it is so odd that we were missing one because it was the first time that all of them did not come in the coop at night. at first I did not know which one it was so I started counting all of my older ones and they are all there and then I counted the younger ones and I am missing one then I am trying to figure out which one it is, I thought by knowing which one is missing I could find it easier because a bantam might be high in a tree while a standard would be lower to the ground... I finnaly realized I was missing one specled sussex...so now we start searchering for her we looked for about 10 min. And finally found her under the coop just laying there, she is just out of reach of my arms so I get a broom and gently push her out to the other side so my brother could get her. I looked her over to make sure she was not injured and she had no visible injuries. I sat her in the coop and she walked over to the other chickens and laid with them...we do have roosts one is a ladder type roost that has 5 roosts on it and then an extra roost that is about 2-3 feet up but still we have about 7-8 that want to sleep in the floor...so that is where that speckled sussex went to. This moring when I went out at 5:30 to open the doors, and she was dead...again I am not sure if she got paralyzed or not as she died during the night and I did not go out and check on her. ..I have no Idea what illness we are dealing with here...we contacted University of Tenn. Extension and the doctors there told us that it sounded like Markes...but if it were Markes why Is it only affecting the younger ones....I stopped filling their water containers with a water hose because we read that they can leak lead into the water..and also a week ago we started using oxine and fogging them with it at night hoping that it would keep the illness from speading any more...I just want to know what is going on so that we can treat it. Thanks for reading all of this...any help would be greatly appreciated.
