Breeding silkied Cochin bantams to the Standard

[3KillerBs]

Ahhh, that must have been what it was! Goodness, I don't know how I could have forgotten, people are still shooting fireworks off every night!


I noticed a bloody stool from one of Peanut Butter's babies last night and several this morning from the brooder boys that I've been taking outside, so I guess we're having an outbreak of coccidiosis here. First time in many years now. All the rain we've been having must have just been too much despite the natural immunity I try to give my chicks. Is it horrible of me to really miss the drought we were having most of last month? Anyway, I always try to keep amprolium on hand, so I've started that with PB's group, the brooder boys, and Amaretto's tinies just in case since they're a fence away from PB and her babies. All of them are still active and energetic despite the bloody stools, and Marka's babies and the older kiddos don't seem to be having any issues at all so far, so hopefully it stays that way.

Good luck with that.

I have not yet had to deal with that and don't look forward to my first time.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I can usually avoid it by giving my chicks some soil in the brooder to expose them early and have them build up natural immunity from that, but we've had so much rain the past week and a half or so that I guess the local coccidia kicked up hard and it was just too much. Fortunately the strain around here seems to be fairly mild; the chicks are energetic as always even a day or two after they start having bloody stools, so I have plenty of warning to get them treated before it really gets serious. My best piece of advice for it is to make sure when you have chicks that you either have amprolium on hand or that your feed store keeps it well stocked so you can grab it ASAP. Once chicks start acting lethargic with coccidiosis, you really can't wait another day to get a coccidiostat into them, they go down so fast.

 

[SourRoses]

I can usually avoid it by giving my chicks some soil in the brooder to expose them early and have them build up natural immunity from that, but we've had so much rain the past week and a half or so that I guess the local coccidia kicked up hard and it was just too much. Fortunately the strain around here seems to be fairly mild; the chicks are energetic as always even a day or two after they start having bloody stools, so I have plenty of warning to get them treated before it really gets serious. My best piece of advice for it is to make sure when you have chicks that you either have amprolium on hand or that your feed store keeps it well stocked so you can grab it ASAP. Once chicks start acting lethargic with coccidiosis, you really can't wait another day to get a coccidiostat into them, they go down so fast.

So true! We have a nasty strain here which doesn't affect their poop, one day they're happy and the next they're going downhill. Being aggressive with amprolium is the only way I can manage it. When it's not raining for a few weeks (hardly ever) I can get away with a lot less. It's raining now for the third time today, lol.

It's good to hear you have a somewhat easier time with it, but it's still not fun when you realize something's wrong with your babies. I hope they recover quickly!
I've found adding a good probiotic like Probios (or similar quality) helps them as well.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Ugh, I've heard that some places have really aggressive strains like that. Definitely not fun! PB and Amaretto's babies seem fine still, but I'm seeing a little sluggishness in two or three of the nine brooder boys affected. I just encouraged them to drink (after cleaning their waterer out, goodness how do they get so much poo in it?! ) so hopefully they've got a good dose of amprolium in them now.



In other news, I nearly forgot it was candling / setting day, whoops! Last batch of eggs is in! I went with 10 from the Blue group. I'm not sure if Athena has been breeding, but I do know she's been laying, so I went with enough that if her eggs don't hatch it's still a decent number of chicks, but if they do hatch then I don't have way too many. That group lays like crazy so I had plenty of eggs to pick from!

And I pulled the clear from last week's batch and got them all candled for the week. Normally I'd wait until day 10 to pull clears, but that egg was definitely clear compared to the others, and it was older anyway and made me a little nervous because of that, so I felt better just going ahead and pulling it.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

PB's babies are effectively back to normal. No new bloody droppings since before I started treatment yesterday. Amaretto's babies never had an issue and they are still fine. Of course I will finish out the treatment regimen with them just to be safe.

The brooder boys are looking perkier today, but still having some bloody poops and wanting to huddle under the heater a bit more than usual. I noticed a bloody poop in the other brooder as well, so both brooders are now on amprolium. I do think they will be okay with as active as they're all still being, but I can't help but worry over it. It's been a looong time since I've had to fight with coccidiosis like this.

 

[NanaK]

Glad you caught it quickly. I think that's key. I'm one of those worryers too!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

A couple of the brooder boys are still sluggish this morning, but they're no longer having bloody droppings so I think we're really on the upswing now.

 

[kurby22]

Gus passed away in the night. Devastated doesn't begin to cover it. He definitely had not been himself since the air quality alerts we were having last week from the Canada wildfire smoke drifting down here, and we've been having our pretty typical summer temperatures but with absolutely oppressive humidity, so that certainly didn't help matters. His only real symptom had been that he was a bit droopy, otherwise he was pretty normal, just panting a lot but that's understandable in that heat and humidity. I am not in a position where I can feasibly send him to be necropsied right now, but I have no reason to suspect anything beyond environmental factors. My big guy. I'm glad I was able to get many healthy chicks out of him this year at least.

Since Washburne seems to have gone broody and I'd already planned not to set any more eggs from that coop this year anyway, I think I may round up the last of the eggs from Gus's coop and let Wash sit on them to see if I can get just a few more Gus babies. Hopefully at least some of them are still fertilized despite that Gus didn't seem to be breeding for the past week or so. Goodness, this chickening stuff is tough sometimes.

I’m so sorry for the loss of your sweet Gus Bad air quality, heat, lots of fluff…it’s tough being a cute little chicken :-(

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

It is, and I'm still hurting over losing the little guy. Apparently he really had stopped breeding his girls, too, because I looked at Wash's batch of eggs again last night and only one is developing. Depending on when it hatches, I'll see if I can graft a chick or two from the incubator to her as well so she has a decent brood to take care of.



On the positive side of things, the brooder boys are looking a lot better this morning!

I was really worried about them for a bit there! Hopefully they'll be back to 100% soon so I can start taking those babes outside again. The brooders are getting pretty cramped at this point!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Took all the brooder babies outside today since it's nice out. The three boys that struggled the most were not wanting to explore and just huddling against the others even though it's warmer out there than inside and they were fine inside. So I went ahead and brought just those three back in to be safe. Everyone else is having a blast with the extra space!



Athena apparently has been breeding with Wyatt because we have 9 out of 10 eggs developing in that last batch. The one that doesn't appear to be developing was older when I set it--not sure why I picked that one out of the available eggs other than that I was rushing and not paying enough attention to the dates on the eggs. But 9 is perfectly fine! Assuming nothing goes wrong and all eggs currently developing hatch, I'll get just past my lowered hatching goal for this year. Then it's on to the long, long wait for them all to grow out!