7 Dead Chicks

[chooks4life]

Thank you all my babies are well now,you all are so kind.even the vet thought I was silly for being upset over a auction chick,but to me my chicks are just as important as dogs,plus dogs don't lay eggs lol

If the vet thought you were being silly and let you know that opinion of theirs, then they need to practice being more professional, in my opinion. It's not their job to judge or condemn whatever level of emotional investment someone is allowed to put into an animal, it's their job to assist their customers' animals to survive. Plenty of vets will try to persuade an owner they're being silly over an animal you can just throw out like rubbish and replace, but that's an old poultry-industry view which needs to be updated to match the increasingly common practice of keeping poultry as pets.

Sure everyone is always finished buying baby's till the next time they go into a feed store ..

I'm one of those who is Done with a capital D... Whenever I look at feed store babies they are always sub-par to a decrepit degree, I can picture what sort of adults they'll grow into having been raised in such poor fashion... Never worth it. Grow your own is my preference, save a world of trouble, you can't put into them later what never went into them in the first place. When you buy feedstore babies you're often buying animals with behavioral issues as well as illnesses, no matter how healthy they claim they are. Just my experience. Would not repeat it ever again.

The survivor chick won't eat egg, but my older ones in the coop LOVE it! The baby is still going strong and is done with the corrid. Started her on probiotics yesterday and am gonna wait till the weekend before I put her with the rest of the flock.
Picked up a couple of 10 month old Buff Orpingtons yesterday.
As cute as the chicks are, I think I'm done buying babies!

The refusal to eat hardboiled egg, if that's what you're offering it, is almost always down to liver trouble. Livers are great at repairing but when they are damaged, high-sulfur foods like egg or garlic can make them nauseous. Fresh and raw, low-sulfur proteins are what suits them best in this state. Millet seed is a great plant protein that can be tolerated by birds with damaged livers.

I've had chicks get coccidiosis with the vaccine for it, or medicated feed. I do have to say tho that I think the vaccine or medicated feed had slowed the progression to death. I've also lost some to necrotic enteritis, which can be caused by cocci or other bacteria. So I tend to treat with sulfadimethoxine, which would take care of both.

Coccidiosis does not always make blood in the stool.

It's actually the sulfur in garlic which led to the studies into sulfur as a medicine for animals, originally, and it's why it works on coccidiosis and parasites. If you have chicks in future which get cocci despite vaccination and medicated feed, would you consider trialling raw fresh garlic? It sounds too simple to work, but it really does, I've never had any cocci issues due to that 'old stockman's trick'. It was used successfully in many countries before other forms of sulfur family drugs were developed.

Best wishes to all.

 

[seminolewind]

The survivor chick won't eat egg, but my older ones in the coop LOVE it! The baby is still going strong and is done with the corrid. Started her on probiotics yesterday and am gonna wait till the weekend before I put her with the rest of the flock.
Picked up a couple of 10 month old Buff Orpingtons yesterday.
As cute as the chicks are, I think I'm done buying babies!

Try some chick feed mush. I'm glad she's doing well.
I don't think that refusing hard boiled egg will most likely be liver damage. The chick may just not be familiar with it. Will she eat anything?

Chooks4life, I'm not sure I'd want to risk a chick life to see if the garlic works. I'm more comfortable using a medication that's known to work. I'll bet the sulpher in garlic lead scientists to create a drug like that.

My chicks have been susceptible to coccidiosis due to Marek's exposure in my flock.

 

[gander007]

The survivor chick won't eat egg, but my older ones in the coop LOVE it! The baby is still going strong and is done with the corrid. Started her on probiotics yesterday and am gonna wait till the weekend before I put her with the rest of the flock.
Picked up a couple of 10 month old Buff Orpingtons yesterday.
As cute as the chicks are, I think I'm done buying babies!

Did the survivor eat any of the egg at all and did you try to put some in it's beak ????

 

[SaltySparrows]

No, she didn't eat any egg, and I didn't force her. She is eating chick crumble just fine and seems to be thriving.

 

[gander007]

No, she didn't eat any egg, and I didn't force her. She is eating chick crumble just fine and seems to be thriving.

When you finish with the crumble try some Turkey Grow it is nice and small and has over 20% protein and more like 27% in most cases and this will aid in growth ...

 

[chooks4life]

Try some chick feed mush. I'm glad she's doing well.
I don't think that refusing hard boiled egg will most likely be liver damage. The chick may just not be familiar with it. Will she eat anything?

Chooks4life, I'm not sure I'd want to risk a chick life to see if the garlic works. I'm more comfortable using a medication that's known to work. I'll bet the sulpher in garlic lead scientists to create a drug like that.

My chicks have been susceptible to coccidiosis due to Marek's exposure in my flock.

Eh, fair enough, just a suggestion.

I haven't lost a single bird to cocci, so that's proof enough for me, but I totally understand your hesitancy.

Regarding the liver damage and high-sulfur avoidance, that's just a common link, it doesn't guarantee liver damage; just that's the most common reason I've seen an animal refuse hard boiled egg or other high sulfur feeds.

Best wishes to all.

 

[seminolewind]

Quote:
What I don't understand is why my chicks hatched under a hen never seem to get coccidiosis. Any idea?

 

[casportpony]

 

 
Try some chick feed mush.  I'm glad she's doing well.
I don't think that refusing hard boiled egg will most likely be liver damage.  The chick may just not be familiar with it.  Will she eat anything?

Chooks4life, I'm not sure I'd want to risk a chick life to see if the garlic works.  I'm more comfortable using a medication that's known to work.  I'll bet the sulpher in garlic lead scientists to create a drug like that.

My chicks have been susceptible  to coccidiosis due to Marek's exposure in my flock.

Eh, fair enough, just a suggestion.

I haven't lost a single bird to cocci, so that's proof enough for me, but I totally understand your hesitancy.

Regarding the liver damage and high-sulfur avoidance, that's just a common link, it doesn't guarantee liver damage; just that's the most common reason I've seen an animal refuse hard boiled egg or other high sulfur feeds.

Best wishes to all.

What I don't understand is why my chicks hatched under a hen never seem to get coccidiosis.  Any idea?

Seems that only the ones I raise inside get it, including ones hatched by hens. I've even seen it in brand new brooders, but rarely do I see it in chicks out in the yard with their hens.

I raise peafowl and poults inside, but never see it in them, just the chicken chicks.

-Kathy

 

[chooks4life]

What I don't understand is why my chicks hatched under a hen never seem to get coccidiosis. Any idea?

Yes, I've read that chicks raised under hens not only receive strong populations of probiotic microorganisms from the feces and saliva of their mother, which helps protect their guts, but they also are gradually being exposed to other sources of cocci that chicks raised indoors are much less likely to be exposed to, it's a double exposure in a positive way. It won't give total immunity, but it's strong, as being mouth-fed bits of food and being exposed to the hen's feces gives a decent inoculation to the chicks of gastrointestinal microfauna and flora which is adapted to the present cocci and able to combat it.

For this reason some people who raise chicks indoors bring in dirt from outside in small and increasing amounts, to gradually introduce the chicks to cocci and let them build resistance. You can feed them pre-packaged sources of probiotics till the cows come home and it won't do the same as a live population of pathogen and location-specific probiotics being shared via repeated exposure to the mother's own microflora/etc.

There are some articles in poultry publications mentioning trials and studies done in this area, and it's been proven that exposure to both cocci and a mother's probiotic population results in immunologically stronger chicks which are much less likely to die from cocci.

Best wishes.

 

[Fancychooklady]

I've always taken the brooder chicks outside at 2-3 days of age to get exposure to the soil. Same in humans, those kids outside in the elements , digging dirt and playing in the pond tend to build better immune systems than those wrapped in cotton wool , inside playing computer games. Coccidiosis doesn't affect all birds in the same way and certainly isn't exclusive to poultry. Our friends head goat died last spring with it. I use garlic as a preventative too, but I also keep a tub of amprolium in the shed , just in case.