10 day old chick pooping blood ( update: stunted growth?)

[technodoll]

I have the WORST luck with chickens, it never ends

I've just isolated a 10-day old BLRW chick that is pooping blood and is sneezing with a chest rattle.

One poop will be firm and normal, the next one will be watery bright red blood, then a normal poop, then a normal one covered in bright red blood.

Chick is eating and drinking but a bit lethargic. I noticed red droppings in the brooder yesterday and it took me a while to identify the culprit.

I got 4 BLRW chicks last week from a good source, the babies seemed normal and clean so I put them in with my bunch of silkies of the same age. What I didn't know at the time was that my silkies all had LICE thanks to their broody mama. One silkie got a respiratory infection, I brought it in the house and that's how I noticed the lice

I treated all the chicks with Ivermectin drops, the lice went away, the sick silkie chick died after suffering for 2 days from water-filled lungs, then another silkie started sneezing and wheezing so I gave them all tetracycline in their water, they seemed to be better this morning. However I had sold two chicks the day before, the new owners called to say one of them was very ill with respiratory infection - it also passed away.

Two silkie chicks dead, one ill but recuperating now.

The BLRW chick, however, is doing poorly. It's in the house now, with Tylan-50 in its drinking water. Poops are as described above.

Of course the "chicken" vet I get my meds from is closed until Monday morning.

Is this coccidia? What should I do? Cull the chick? See if it's still alive on Monday and then treat?

What about the rest of the babies since they were all in contact with each other?

Please help!!

 

[gamamachik]

Try Safeguard(fenbendozole) just a few drops for at least 2-3 days til you see improvement. If they are not eating feed them powdered milk or baby oatmeal cereal feed with a syringe(of course without the needle---lol) also you can give the Safeguard the same way...Sorry about your sick babies, hope they get better...

 

[technodoll]

Everyone's eating, what I'm worried about is the bloody poop - what could it be?

Do all the chicks have a sickness but only one is exhibiting symptoms?

I've noted down the meds and will speak to a vet monday when they're open and hope to get a treatment

 

[SmittenChicken]

Could coccidiosis be a culprit? I'm really new at this and not sure if it's likely to develop in a chick that young, I think the latency period might be longer than 10 days.

I have a little EE chick that I think may have coccidiosis (every symptom except the bloody poop), I've read that Corid (or another form of concentrated Amprolium) is the best thing to use. This is often stocked in the cattle section, in case you have a hard time finding it - the bottle I got from my local feed store is labeled for cattle but is the same stuff used for poultry.

From the chest rattle it sounds like there might be some kind of secondary infection that should be treated with an antibiotic, I've heard coccidiosis can make them susceptible to other diseases as well. Hope you get some definitive answers from someone with more experience than me, and that your little one pulls through!

Sara

 

[Kiwibird]

Coccidiosis is the usual problem when there is blood in the faeces. I don't know of it also causing respiratory symptoms, so you may have two different illnesses in your flock.

Coccidiosis requires very prompt treatment, unfortunately.

 

[technodoll]

Update... 3rd day on antibiotics and the bloody stools are cleaning up nicely, almost normal now.

Chick is still sneezing here and there but seems much better, it's chirpy, eating and drinking and acting normal.

I put one of its litter mates in there for company and am floored by how stunted in growth this baby is... the others from the same hatch are twice the size of this chick, and they were all the same size when I brought them home a week ago. It's like this baby has not grown at all the past 8 days.

Is this a bad sign?