20% mortality rate and rising

[member 593900]

I pre-ordered 100 white American Bresse from Dunlap Hatchery earlier this year, vaccination for Merek’s included, and got my first shipment of 50 day-old chicks in the mail on Friday. 1 DOA, nothing unusual there. I moved them into the brooder with little fanfare and left the DOA out back for the turkey vultures.

The first time I went to check on them about an hour later, one chick was notably more lethargic than the others. It was laying down and shaking, unable to breathe from it’s nose, and gasping for air through thick, bubbly saliva. I had a coccidiosis outbreak last fall, and since the symptoms in this chick looked similar, I immediately administered liquid amprolium and electrolytes with a dropper directly into his mouth. I tried to get him through it, but when he was showing no signs of improvement and hadn’t opened his eyes in an hour, I decided to end his suffering. Sad, but again, nothing unusual. I administered liquid amprolium to the whole flock as a precaution.

Later that day, I did a second check and noticed two things. One, a number of chicks were having issues with their legs - not true spraddle leg, but lots of them with just one leg sticking out at an angle. Two, a chick was dead in the waterer - clearly drowned, despite the water being less than 1/2” deep in a chick-appropriate waterer, which it made me wonder if this one also suffered from a leg problem that prevented him from simply picking himself up when he fell in.

We had an uneventful weekend, until today. Everyone was fine at the morning check, and 6 more were dead at the evening check. The majority of those remaining aren’t looking so good, including one who I’m confident will be #7 by sunset.

I’ve already mailed the 2 dead from arrival day to my local university lab for a necropsy, and will mail in all other dead as they come. I’m very nervous about this spreading to my laying flock. Of course I’ll do everything I can for the remaining chicks, but it begs the question: what the hell?

 

[JessicaDotta]

Yikes! That must be so worrisome and frustrating.

 

[Mellowmalt]

It sounds like you have raised this many chicks previously? I can't imagine it would be easy to raise 100 but it sounds like you know what you are doing and this time more are dying than before?

I'm hardly an experienced chicken keeper, more of a keen hobbyist so I've researched things a bit and from my understanding chicks can't get coccidiosis in the first week. It takes time to develop. So it is highly unlikely to be coccidiosis.

Furthermore treating for something they very unlikely have is not good practice, just because you happen to have it on hand and want to do something.

I know wanting to do something is what we want to do but feeding medicine that should not be fed to week old chicks is not helpful imo.

amprolium blocks the intake of thiamine. So the coccidiosis dies. This is fine when chicks have some thiamine reserves butchicks less than a wekk old do not have any thiamine reserves yet, in fact thimaine is the most important vitamin for week old chicks to recover from transport stress and hatching in general. To feed something that inhibits the uptake of the most essential vitamin week old chicks need should only be done as a last resort (to kill the coccidiosis) - one should be aware it will drain the chicks and weaken them just like the medicine will do to the disease.

That is just my understanding and I've luckily never dealt with coccidiosis.

 

[member 593900]

It sounds like you have raised this many chicks previously? I can't imagine it would be easy to raise 100 but it sounds like you know what you are doing and this time more are dying than before?

I'm hardly an experienced chicken keeper, more of a keen hobbyist so I've researched things a bit and from my understanding chicks can't get coccidiosis in the first week. It takes time to develop. So it is highly unlikely to be coccidiosis.

Furthermore treating for something they very unlikely have is not good practice, just because you happen to have it on hand and want to do something.

I know wanting to do something is what we want to do but feeding medicine that should not be fed to week old chicks is not helpful imo.

amprolium blocks the intake of thiamine. So the coccidiosis dies. This is fine when chicks have some thiamine reserves butchicks less than a wekk old do not have any thiamine reserves yet, in fact thimaine is the most important vitamin for week old chicks to recover from transport stress and hatching in general. To feed something that inhibits the uptake of the most essential vitamin week old chicks need should only be done as a last resort (to kill the coccidiosis) - one should be aware it will drain the chicks and weaken them just like the medicine will do to the disease.

That is just my understanding and I've luckily never dealt with coccidiosis.

My order was for 100 chicks, but I only received my first shipment of 50 at the time of posting - a bit more than I normally raise, but not by a huge margin, and I expanded my brooding area accordingly. I’ve since canceled the second shipment of the remaining 50 to protect my greater flock from exposure.

While I think I did the best I could with what I had at the time, I don’t think it’s coccidiosis at this point. I successfully treated it once before, and the improvement in their condition was marked and rapid. No such luck this time around, and I hate knowing there’s nothing else I can do for them.

One thing that does interest me, though: I realize our national protocols probably differ, since I’m in the US and your sidebar says you’re in the UK, but most commercially reared chicks in the US are fed medicated starter from hatch to 8 weeks of age. Now, I think we have a terrible method of caring for livestock my side of the pond - I agree with you and find environmental prevention far preferable to prophylactic medication - but I’d expect a greater number of week-old chicks in the US to die from thiamine deficiency if early coccidiostat usage came with such a high risk of mortality. Do you have any studies you recommend reading? For all I know, the mortality rate *is* that high with hatchling amprolium administration, and most of us simply aren’t privy to it!

 

[sassychickens76]

Hope you don't have too many more die!

 

[Banana01]

The sprawled leg is a side effect from a nutritional deficiency. The antibiotics are not mixing well with the food they are eating, they are countering some of the nutrition. I treated a chick with antibiotics, and noticed him have similar side effects that you are seeing. I hand fed him and hand watered him and his droppings are starting to look normal again and he is looking great. I hand fed him a mix of his food, some grit, and some banana rolled into a ball and placed into his throat. His recovery has been better than I could have hoped. It turns out that the antibiotics are not reacting with the food very well. Their guts are not developed enough to absorb the nutrition they are ingesting, but the prebiotics develop the fermentation process for them more rapidly. This is just a hypothesis but it is showing promise with my chick. Mashed banana mixed with the food is what I used. Maybe your chicks will eat that. Vitamin K is water soluable and there is no toxic dose. It may also have prebiotic properties so that you could treat your whole flock through the water. I'm still reaearching that so you have to do your own research.

 

[member 593900]

The sprawled leg is a side effect from a nutritional deficiency. The antibiotics are not mixing well with the food they are eating, they are countering some of the nutrition. I treated a chick with antibiotics, and noticed him have similar side effects that you are seeing. I hand fed him and hand watered him and his droppings are starting to look normal again and he is looking great. I hand fed him a mix of his food, some grit, and some banana rolled into a ball and placed into his throat. His recovery has been better than I could have hoped. It turns out that the antibiotics are not reacting with the food very well. Their guts are not developed enough to absorb the nutrition they are ingesting, but the prebiotics develop the fermentation process for them more rapidly. This is just a hypothesis but it is showing promise with my chick. Mashed banana mixed with the food is what I used. Maybe your chicks will eat that. Vitamin K is water soluable and there is no toxic dose. It may also have prebiotic properties so that you could treat your whole flock through the water. I'm still reaearching that so you have to do your own research.


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Amprolium is an antiprotozoal, not an antibiotic. I’ve never used antibiotics in my flocks, and the leg problems started before I administered amprolium, leading me to suspect a genetic or neuropathological cause.

 

[Banana01]

Amprolium is an antiprotozoal, not an antibiotic. I’ve never used antibiotics in my flocks, and the leg problems started before I administered amprolium, leading me to suspect a genetic or neuropathological cause.

If cocci is not present, your problem may just be to add a supplement of Vitamin B to the feed. I hope you can share the test results whether there is cocci or other evidence. Competitive exclusion seems to be a point of research that leads to many scholarly articles related to amprolium and the use of medicated feed.

I ask why the bubbly mucous in the mouth and I see the same thing often in my sick chicks? Even if it's not cocci, there is a harmful bacteria competing with the good bacteria and the medicated feed is creating a competitive exclusion condition in the gut. Even just a lack of good bacteria in the gut could account for a nutritional deficiency causing the neurodegeneration.

Still seems like some kind of pro- or pre- biotics would only help develop the beneficial gut flora more rapidly. Are you seeing the dark smelly types of droppings that indicate a well developed gut flora? I usually see bubbly watery droppings before their condition becomes grave, but recently I have been able to reverse it with hand feeding and the prebiotics. My chick perks up within twelve hours of hand feeding.

I know you are treating with antiparasitic medicine, but I've seen the same conditions repeatedly after using antibiotics, the foamy mucous, splayed leg, neurodegenerative signs. Even your antiprotozoal medicine could still be a cause of competiton for the bacterias to adhere to the mucous lining of the gut.

It doesn't seem coincidental that splayed leg is indicated by a Vitamin B deficiency, and amprolium is inhibiting the uptake of Vitamin B in the parasite, and the response of the parasite would be competition for the Vitamin B from the feed you are giving them. This is way beyond me honestly, but research articles indicate that probiotics were beneficial.

All the technical stuff aside that I do not understand, I actually monitor closely my chicks food intake, and get gut instincts as to whether his digestive tract is healthy or needs some supplements to develop. I do not have a handle on what diseases my flock carries, but they have parasite and viral diseases, and others I have to deal with. I wish I did know more honestly what diseases I am dealing with.