Buffy dropped dead!

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
You might call you county extension agent, in the phone book under county government, and see what the state has to offer in the way of testing. Each state is different, but a lot of times fairly inexpensive testing is available at your state land grant university, especially if commercial chickens are big in your state.

 

[Uzuri]

We've dealt with them for 4H rabbits, so yeah, maybe they'd be a help.

I also read up on fecal floats. Gross, but interesting. Probably wouldn't be a difficult do-it-yourself project, not if all you're looking for is a first-pass "should I worm, should I not" rather than specific pathology. Interesting, if disgusting, stuff.

 

[Pharm Girl]

Quote:
We have one BO (named Buffy of course!) and her bum is always dirty. I have to bathe her every other week and it just gets bad again....Must be a BO thing. Sorry about your loss..good luck finding what you need.

 

[Uzuri]

Been reading more, because I always read more and discovered two symptoms of cocci that no one ever mentions:

-Watery droppings
-GREEN droppings

These we have. I thought the green was due to them being on grass after not having any all winter, and hadn't really paid attention to the watery ones because they weren't behaving as though they were ill (the chickens, not the droppings. If I see a dropping behaving as if it were ill, I'm just going to back away slowly).

I wish people wouldn't focus so much on the bloody droppings as being THE symptom. If I'd have known about the watery and green bit, the birds would have been dosed last week. *walks off somewhere to swear* Sigh... hindsight.

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

Quote:
After my consultation with Doc Brown I am convinced that some of the deaths I've had were from cocci because I wasn't looking for "those" symptoms. I did lose 4 juveniles to the "bloody diarrhea" kind of cocci....but not all of them have that symptom. There are 9 species of cocci that can live in the chicken's intestinal track in different areas. Symptoms vary.

I just put our monthly Amprol in all the waterers today...and it is a chore when you have 12 waterers. But I think I will rest more easily knowing that we are keeping the colony count in their gut down to a reasonable level while also allowing them to develop natural immunities.

 

[Uzuri]

Well, live and learn. Or possibly not learn, yet, got to wait to see what happens still

At the moment my plan of attack is to dose with Corid and observe. If we're still having abnormal droppings after the Corid has had a chance to take effect, I go to the extension office and see if they'll test for worms for me. As of this morning I still had 7, so they've at least had a chance at getting some of the medicine in them. Is the monthly Amprol a typical preventative? It's so hard to find references out there; everything's for cattle.

We're dosing the rabbits for cocci as well, just in case, since it's one of the few things that the various rabbit books out there warn can be shared between the two animals, and since we currently have a mouse problem in the rabbit shed (which could help spread things like crazy). We have some older rabbits in somewhat poor health, so we decided that it was wise not to sit on them too long.

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

Yes, it's to prevent an acute episode of coccidiosis. It just keeps the colony count of cocci down to a manageable level for the bird but still allows them to build natural immunity.

 

[Uzuri]

What dosage level do you use as a preventative? Same as the treatment, or more dilute?

 

[Uzuri]

4 days into treatment and no new deaths. Also, no more green or watery droppings. So I hope that means that that was that and we're going to be back to normal here. Or normal minus one real dumb blond of a chicken.

Three days of actual SUNSHINE seems to have perked everyone up as well.