Anybody know what this looks like?

TheBoyds

Chirping
Sep 6, 2021
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This is one of two we’ve had quarantined from the others for a week+ with a respiratory thing. They were on oral antibiotics for 5 days and Tylosin for the last 4. The other one not shown has just been kinda sleepy today. No obvious respiratory distress or noisy breathing in either one. Thank you.
 

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Sometimes it helps to explain some symptoms. In the video your polish chickens looks like she is having some neurological symptoms and wry neck (torticolis.) Could she have a head injury? Wry neck is a symptom seen in vitamin E or B1 thiamine deficiency, head injuries, and sometimes in Mareks or some other viruses.

If you can get human vitamin E and B complex, give her a 400IU soft gel, and 1/4 tablet of B complex daily for the next 2 weeks. Also give her a little scrambled egg, tuna, or sunflower seed daily in addition to her feed, for selenium. Hopefully, she will start to show some improvement soon.
 
So we had another polish die about a month and a half ago at 6 weeks old on 9/2. She was always kind of small and “off” and we knew that if we had a problem with them it would be with her.

On the day she died we found her standing but unable to lift head up and shaking her head occasionally.

Took her to the CSU vet hospital and they put her down and said they would do a necropsy. The preliminary results came back “suspicious for mareks” but not confirmed.

We got the two I have been talking about on 9/8, from the same organic hatchery we got the others from that doesn’t vaccine. Both started sneezing and had scratchy voices on 10/9. They were in the coop/run with the other 4. The others seem fine then and now.

on 10/9 one of our rocks died. She was fine one day the next morning we found her breathing super hard and deep with her eyes closed and she died a short time later.

the next day we took the polish you see back to CSU as she had the worse of the symptoms. CSU would only RX the one bird for oral trimethoprim and meloxicam to our dismay. The said quarantine her.

When we got home we decided to quarantine both birds that were having the resp symptoms and start them both on the one birds RX, and find a farm vet.

We did that. The vet that came out wrote us a RX for Tylosin for all of them. We started the regular birds on it that day, 10/12. She said keep both quarantined birds on the oral stuff til it’s gone, and then start them on Tylosin too. Started that on them on 10/16. Vet said keep them quarantined for 2 weeks.

the outside birds besides the one that abruptly died have never seemed sick then or now. They will be 13 weeks old on Wednesday. The quarantined ones seemed fine before the stuff I told/showed you guys yesterday. They both seem fine today. The polish will be 14 weeks, and the Americana 12

sorry this is so long, just wanted to give an accurate breakdown of the situation.

I have a run and coop that is not cramped, pretty spacious, for the number of birds I have. The run doesn’t have a wet problem. The coop floor is tiny pea gravel river rock about 4 in deep. We clean the poops out every day with like a kitty litter shovel. Never had a bad smell in there. Just started using diatomaceous earth in there yesterday.

thank you
 
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Sorry that it may be that you have Mareks in your flock. But it would be good to get a pcr Mareks test, either by your state vet along with a necdopsy, or by contacting a lab that will allow you to collect a blood sample from a toenail on a live bird and send it back in to them. This link has contact info for RAL lab in TX who will do that testing for around $40:
https://www.vetdna.com/application/forms/aviansubmittalform.pdf

Mareks can make chickens more susceptible to common infections due to poor immunity. Here is some reading about the 4 types of symptoms that may happen with Mareks disease:
http://csu-cvmbs.colostate.edu/Documents/vdl-mareks-disease-fact-sheet.pdf

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/the-great-big-giant-mareks-disease-faq.66077/
 
Took her to the CSU vet hospital and they put her down and said they would do a necropsy. The preliminary results came back “suspicious for mareks” but not confirmed.
When will you get these results back?

Unfortunately it sounds like you might have a respiratory disease in your flock as well as Marek's.

Antibiotics can help some of the symptoms of respiratory diseases but it won't cure it.

How many birds do you have total?

Do you have a link to the place that you bought these birds from?
Have you talked to the person you bought them from to let them know how sick your birds are?
 
When will you get these results back?

Unfortunately it sounds like you might have a respiratory disease in your flock as well as Marek's.

Antibiotics can help some of the symptoms of respiratory diseases but it won't cure it.

How many birds do you have total?

Do you have a link to the place that you bought these birds from?
Have you talked to the person you bought them from to let them know how sick your birds are?
We got them from a place called Serenity Sprouts

https://www.serenitysprouts.com/

I told them about the first bird. Haven’t said anything else to them because the full finished necropsy report hasn’t come back yet. We started with 6 chicks from them. 1 died at 6 weeks. Got 2 more from them. Another one of the first group died at 12 weeks. So I have 6 total. 4 doing great in the coop run, 2 still on quarantine. The 2 in quarantine are the 2 new ones. The Americana is 13 weeks and the polish is 14 weeks.
 
This is one of two we’ve had quarantined from the others for a week+ with a respiratory thing. They were on oral antibiotics for 5 days and Tylosin for the last 4. The other one not shown has just been kinda sleepy today. No obvious respiratory distress or noisy breathing in either one. Thank you.

Mine was doing some very similar movements when she had sour crop.

edit: video
 
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We got them from a place called Serenity Sprouts

https://www.serenitysprouts.com/

I told them about the first bird. Haven’t said anything else to them because the full finished necropsy report hasn’t come back yet. We started with 6 chicks from them. 1 died at 6 weeks. Got 2 more from them. Another one of the first group died at 12 weeks. So I have 6 total. 4 doing great in the coop run, 2 still on quarantine. The 2 in quarantine are the 2 new ones. The Americana is 13 weeks and the polish is 14 weeks.
Thank you.
I really hate to see people sell sick birds. I think it's just horrible.
 

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