Baffled and Totally Bummed OUT!! ***FINAL UPDATE***

[Renee]

Sorry to hear about your chickens.
I have lost two out of four over two years, and another is looking pretty grim. Mine died from different things, and I am beginning to think sometimes it's just the luck of the draw.
Renee

 

[wundernurse]

I am going to try and do some more work in the coop before the next rain expected Friday. Nelly stayed in last night. She did well, and her poop this am does not look terrible. Could not get the antibiotics in her though. Need a second person. Vet gave her Orbax. She would not eat in the house with me, so I brought her back out to the coop and put the heat lamp on in one corner for her. We'll see how she does.

 

[wundernurse]

She has made it through another day, but she does not appear any better. She slept inside last night, but temps won't be too bad tonight, so I am planning to leave her out. I am going to have a necropsy done if she doesn't make it. I just have to figure out what t his is. Could it be Marek's? The only chicken that had more of a neurological involvement was the first chicken, who would peck at the air and wobble a bit.

 

[Kittymomma]

Quote:
Hey Wondernurse,

I, apoligize in advance if I'm getting this thread confused with another one, no time to re-read right now. Anyhow, it seems like you've mentioned water problems and that you use straw. If that's right do you think you might have mold somwhere?

 

[The Sheriff]

My DH is a late sleeper and I had two birds on oral antibiotics for almost three weeks. The first dose of the day was due hours before he gets up so I found a way to administer the oral medication by myself. I hold the bird under my left arm with it's feet on a counter. I gently push the bird down reaching around it with my left hand. I pull down on the bottom beak with my left thumb and index finger while using the syringe in my right hand to gently lift the top beak. They actually don't put up much of a fight this way and I am able to get the medicine in. Small doses I give all at once and larger doses I give in 2-3 squirts so I don't accidentally cause an aspiration. Luckily my vet prepared an oral suspension with a sweet tasting diluent so they actually accepted it pretty well. Good luck to you. I hope you find out what is going on with your girls. I think your coop is lovely by the way.

Mary

 

[wundernurse]

Quote:
Hey Wondernurse,

I, apoligize in advance if I'm getting this thread confused with another one, no time to re-read right now. Anyhow, it seems like you've mentioned water problems and that you use straw. If that's right do you think you might have mold somwhere?

I think my coop floor has been damp since we have had a ton of rain here in Atlanta. I had shoveled out a good bit of the dirt and put some straw on top, but another member said straw on wet ground is also not good, so I removed all the straw. What can I do to help keep the flooring dry? What should I add to the dirt now that it is relatively dry before the next rain (Friday)?

 

[dlhunicorn]

you can put in pallets to make a false "raised floor" and line that with cardboard if you have nothing else.

 

[tulie13]

I'm a little late to the party, but I have 2 items to mention - first, if you are using antibiotics, watch out for crop problems after treatment. If their crops seem OK after you run your course, start feeding them some plain yogurt daily for a while as a treat to help re-establish crop and gut bacteria. Otherwise you will get a bad yeast/fungal infection in the crop and THAT can kill them. Don't ask me how I know...

Second, if these are your FIRST chickens, and you raised them on medicated feed in order to allow them to develop resistance to coccidiosis, don't assume they have actually developed this resistance. They have to be EXPOSED to coccidiosis while on the feed so it can cycle through their systems. You may be having a late outbreak of it with little to no immunity in your chickens if you started with "virgin" ground/soil for your coop and run. Again, don't ask me how I know...

OK, I'll tell you how I know... 9 out of 22 hens down from double-whammy coccidiosis (two varieties!) and clostridium infection. The last 4 that went down probably did not die from that, but most likely died from bad fungal overgrowth in their crops.

 

[wundernurse]

Yikes, sorry to hear that Tulie. Thanks for the info. Yes this was my first group of birds on virgin ground, so I don't know what is up. In fact, I have contacted the state's poultry lab and I have decided to bring Nelly in and have her sacrificed and do a post mortem to try and find out what has ravaged my flock. She is still holding her own today. She is not any better, but no worse. I think she would die in the end, given my flock history. The vet at the lab would rather get her alive, put her to sleep and study her insides freshly dead. I am bummed. I really liked this chicken and her cute blue eggs. She would chase my dog around the yard, it was really funny. Oh well...

 

[wundernurse]

Brought her to the poultry lab today. Seemed like the right thing to do. She was not getting any better. I pretty much knew how it would end for her. I NEED to find out what this is, it is driving me batty. hope I can hang on to the two I have left. I will update when I hear back from the lab.