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- #171
I wouldn't be adding any more chickens to your flock, its obvious you have a highly contagious disease going through your flock and will continue to kill off your birds. Any that does survive will be carriers. It is probably best to cull them all and find out what is going on, then start over fresh. I know you love your birds, sorry if I sound harsh. I would not want to be in your position.
How did some of the necropsy results turn out that was done earlier?
No not harsh - its something I consider every day. But, only a few diseases actually create "carriers" out of the bird from what I have been told by the Texas A & M vet as well as all the reading I've been doing for months now :/ The necropsy was inconclusive on all 8 birds. He said they had pneumonia but that it could be caused by so many different things it didn't really help. He tried doing a culture but that also apparently didn't answer anything. He would like me to send another bird, and I had intended to but have a hard time deciding where to invest the $ when hubby hasn't worked since November 4th or so and all the cancer bills are coming in. In spite of all this, my laying hens just keep on laying. They took a quick break to molt but other wise are laying well and I even have new ones laying. It doesn't seem to effect them once they are of age to lay And - another weird thing. I have a separate coop on the other side of the house where I put my brooder babies when they were a month old. In spite of the close proximity and far less than perfect procedures none of the 17 birds on the other side have caught "it". But there were 3 roosters on that side that started bullying everyone and I had to move them out to the main coop. Within a week they caught "it" too and have runny noses.
It doesn't seem contagious enough to be any of the serious viruses, abx haven't done anything so doesn't seem to be bacterial either, it seems to be environmental. Anytime I stir up the earth trying to clean really well I think a new round of sickness starts. I spent the last 3 days totally gutting it and turning it into a cote to get them all up off the ground. I am thinking of trying to bring in sand to cover the floor but I don't know if that would really help. I have given up all my plans of breeding for now and will just have them as a giant breakfast flock, although another interesting aspect of all this is the fact that the eggs and chicks are perfectly healthy - 100% hatch rates nearly every time I hatched my own eggs
Here it so far - its a 12 x 21 carport with a solid coop in the center which has been converted into a nesting area for the layers. The bottom was removed with roosts added and poop hammocks are underneath as well as all the high roosts I built. Some of the smaller birds still want to roost inside it at night so I am letting them but training them to go up higher soon. Tomorrow I am getting my 7 year old to help me chase all the chickens out and we are going to try to get back down to bare dirt everywhere in there. The blue tarp at the end leads to a run which they really don't use anymore since they free range all day.