5th chick dying in my hands right now - help!

[familypendragon]

I have been reading this whole thread and its sad and depressing but I cant stop reading!! I am sooooo sorry to hear this happening to anyone. I could not imagine. Where did the very first sick bird come from? Where they vaccinated when they were born? Sorry you are going through this horrible ordeal.

None of my birds were vaxed against anything. Most breeders I know try to go pretty natural. The first sick bird was from fowl pox which is carried by mosquitoes and wild birds. It is extremely common especially here in Texas.

I heard back from the lab today. Definite Dry and Wet fowl pox. He sees nothing else except tracheitis/pneumonia which he said is usually a secondary infection caused by various bacteria when the bird is already down with wet pox. He is still poking around etc, but said these are his preliminary findings. Based on this he recommended I do a 2nd dosing of the Tylan but this time for 10 days. Also, I will order the pox vaccine for all the new hatchlings as he said it is far less virulent than what these birds are dealing with right now. I also will order a backup antibiotic called SpecLinx 50 to have on hand if tylan does not work or we have a reoccurrence. He said another possible cause would be the fungus aspergillis instead of bacteria. so if the tylan doesn't work he wants me to call back first before using anything else and discuss symptoms. He is attempting to do a culture right now to see if he can narrow it down.

The good news is that if its just pox - I should be through the worst of it now. Most of the birds with dry pox are just about over it, and even some of the wet pox ones seem better. But there is still plenty of bad sounding breathing out there so I will be really glad to see that gone.

 

[familypendragon]

So sad bout your chilled chick saw a drown chick thread just couple of days ago it miraculously survived hoped yours would be ok too.I blaming myself for the millie I may have compromised it someone came here with box of silkie chicks I handled them and I didn't wash my hands before I picked it up to show him the weird colour out of the porcelain pen. Long story short 6 those 10 silkies are dead too he said they got wet i did have a thought it was tramitted and got stuck into him but he just started talking and I so angry I couldn't listen to it.Yes i tried vitamins n wheatgrass juice our feeds are good here but It might have been low in that batch I thought maybe it D so put the tub brooder open in the sun ended up tried a rickets diet too hoping it was something else. I have the comprised brooder group seperated have since Millie got sick. I burnt the brooder they were in and burn the ground when I move the pen.

Oh my I hope everything works out I have had the worst luck bringing in new birds. I will be very glad to not do that again for a long while...

 

[familypendragon]

I want to say thank you to all the nice chicken lovers who have helped me, encouraged me, advised me, and empathized with me on this thread. This has been so hard to deal with - but I hope that some day someone is looking for information and will stumble upon it in this thread as I have so many threads before mine and find the help they need

 

[familypendragon]

Here is some info I found about fowl pox in Texas http://posc.tamu.edu/files/2012/08/Fowl-pox.pdf

 

[rachmickmurphy]

Omg fpd our news just broadcast pics the flooding there. Not good. So glad you got answer and a treatment thats such great news. One of my mother ducks dumped two hatching egg out the nest today when I say hatching I mean bills hang out of huge holes and she carried them to the middle of the lawn I scooped them up and put in tub brooder they have both hatched now but they have marble sized lumps at umbilical site. How smart are ducks she knew they had probs before they hatched.

 

[familypendragon]

Omg fpd our news just broadcast pics the flooding there. Not good. So glad you got answer and a treatment thats such great news. One of my mother ducks dumped two hatching egg out the nest today when I say hatching I mean bills hang out of huge holes and she carried them to the middle of the lawn I scooped them up and put in tub brooder they have both hatched now but they have marble sized lumps at umbilical site. How smart are ducks she knew they had probs before they hatched.

That is amazing - I hope they do well!

 

[Lillahimed]

None of my birds were vaxed against anything. Most breeders I know try to go pretty natural. The first sick bird was from fowl pox which is carried by mosquitoes and wild birds. It is extremely common especially here in Texas.

I heard back from the lab today. Definite Dry and Wet fowl pox. He sees nothing else except tracheitis/pneumonia which he said is usually a secondary infection caused by various bacteria when the bird is already down with wet pox. He is still poking around etc, but said these are his preliminary findings. Based on this he recommended I do a 2nd dosing of the Tylan but this time for 10 days. Also, I will order the pox vaccine for all the new hatchlings as he said it is far less virulent than what these birds are dealing with right now. I also will order a backup antibiotic called SpecLinx 50 to have on hand if tylan does not work or we have a reoccurrence. He said another possible cause would be the fungus aspergillis instead of bacteria. so if the tylan doesn't work he wants me to call back first before using anything else and discuss symptoms. He is attempting to do a culture right now to see if he can narrow it down.

The good news is that if its just pox - I should be through the worst of it now. Most of the birds with dry pox are just about over it, and even some of the wet pox ones seem better. But there is still plenty of bad sounding breathing out there so I will be really glad to see that gone.

Thank god it is fowl pox! I had feared it might have been mareks... That wiped out my entire wild duck population

The worst is behind you, so hopefully no more death

 

[familypendragon]

Thank god it is fowl pox! I had feared it might have been mareks... That wiped out my entire wild duck population   The worst is behind you, so hopefully no more death 

 

[bellschick]

Im glad to hear the worst is over and I know it still hurts buts time and new babies works wonders on a chicken lovers heart. I hope the future holds better results and more happiness instead of sorrow.

 

[familypendragon]

I have another CCL hen who has the one sided face swelling. She's had it for while and I thought she was getting better but I think she'd actually been hiding and I was confusing her for her sister. I took pics and video when I found her today. I sent them to the vet at the lab and he said its definitely more than just pox so he is going to keep testing. Here is my poor girl. Her eye was crusted over and I wiped it to see that she has very bad "pink eye" underneath. You can hear her breathing on the video, poor baby.

The good side

The bad side

After I wiped it with a wet paper towel

She opened it just slightly when startled and I tried to get a pic of the eye underneath, it was really watery

The video of her breathing

[VIDEO]