California - Northern

[ronott1]

I've recently had some mysterious unexplained deaths in the broody house and it's all when the lab is closed of course! The chicks are all fluffy and look happy until they die. No pasty butt or gasping.

Since I had a case of yolk sack infection a while back I'm wondering if this is the same thing. I had a broody sitting on eggs and I put them in the incubator because she hatched some and left the others. They hatched 10 days earlier than the incubator eggs. I cleaned out the shells but the chicks would have crawled all over the other eggs. I'm wondering if this allowed a bacteria to grow that would cause infection. I don't know when I quit being so GREEN and making dumb mistakes. Whenever that happens, I will be very grateful! It would have been far less costly to toss the 3 mutt eggs from under the broody than to lose 9 chicks from specific breeding.

Starting Thursday I've lost 2 a day and I'm not very happy at all! I can't pin point the problem because it doesn't look like anything.

Before that it was just one here and there so I didn't really alarm. Losing one or two out of 50 chicks doesn't shake me up - usually they are runts and you know they were going to die anyway. When I start losing one or more a day then I know there is something wrong.

I've two chicks, one of the first and the one from tonight, set aside for UC DAVIS to get Tues.
(Yes, wrapped in napkins, hiding in the fridge in sandwich bags, tucked away so no one opens them.

Don't know what else to do).

Is there anything you would do in the meanwhile? If it is yolk sack infection - is this treatable with something I can hunt down and buy on Monday? I'd like to preempt any more losses as 3 of the dead chicks are some of my new Basque flock. They were so happy and chunky. I hate to lose any more!

Get the anti biotic that kills e coli.

I mailed the crop pills on Friday to you.

 

[CackleJoy]

Get the anti biotic that kills e coli.

I mailed the crop pills on Friday to you.

Somebody besides me is up

Thank you - we did get the crop pills but I was at a dead run getting ready for today. So no time to come online and comment or ask questions. We had church at the beach today. Potluck with 225+ attending. It was great fun but took a lot of prep.

Thank you so much for the pills. Do you just pick the bird up and stuff one down his throat?



Regarding e-coli, is this transmittable to humans? How careful do I need to be? Since I know we had it the one time, should I not be allowing my kids to do chores until I get everything sanitized? Actually, since the one incident, everything has been sanitized and the kids did it for me.

Hope I'm not exposing my family to something awful.

 

[ronott1]

Somebody besides me is up

Thank you - we did get the crop pills but I was at a dead run getting ready for today. So no time to come online and comment or ask questions. We had church at the beach today. Potluck with 225+ attending. It was great fun but took a lot of prep.

Thank you so much for the pills. Do you just pick the bird up and stuff one down his throat?



Regarding e-coli, is this transmittable to humans? How careful do I need to be? Since I know we had it the one time, should I not be allowing my kids to do chores until I get everything sanitized? Actually, since the one incident, everything has been sanitized and the kids did it for me.

Hope I'm not exposing my family to something awful.

It may not be e coli but it was with the Isbars recently. The anti biotic that works for it should work for whatever is causing the egg yolk peritonitis. The Necropsy will tell you for sure but it is something to try until the report comes back.

I hop you stop losing the chicks.

To give him a pill, pull up on the comb and he will open up his beak. push the pill down and he will swallow. It takes a bit of time, but it works.

 

[sewandgrow]

Speaking of little birds...we have a Magpie nest in the HUGE Oak tree in our yard. A few days ago I found a baby magpie on the ground in our back yard - it's very lucky I found it before the dog did. It had swelling under one of it's eyes, so I took it to the wildlife center by my house. Found ANOTHER one today, this one was uninjured and very lively, but couldn't fly. Put it back up in the tree for it's parents to take care of it until it can fly(called the wildlife center and this is what they said to do). The parents of that little bird are EXTREMELY angry with us for touching their baby, but it's better up in a tree than down on the ground where my mom's devil cat would find and kill it. The parents of that bird were yelling at us all morning. You should have heard the commotion they were making when we were trying to put the baby back up in the tree!

Years ago my Father in law found a fledgling Magpie like that & raised it in a cage in his house. He kept it for about 6months to a year I think then let it go. He fed it hamburger.

 

[Hangtown Farms]

Somebody besides me is up

Thank you - we did get the crop pills but I was at a dead run getting ready for today. So no time to come online and comment or ask questions. We had church at the beach today. Potluck with 225+ attending. It was great fun but took a lot of prep.

Thank you so much for the pills. Do you just pick the bird up and stuff one down his throat?



Regarding e-coli, is this transmittable to humans? How careful do I need to be? Since I know we had it the one time, should I not be allowing my kids to do chores until I get everything sanitized? Actually, since the one incident, everything has been sanitized and the kids did it for me.

Hope I'm not exposing my family to something awful.

oxine is supposed to kill E-coli so I hear. I just got my gallon so I am going to spray my coops out today

 

[casportpony]

UofA update:

Here are pics of the late quitter:

Looks like no yolk absorbed at all.
What is the jelly substance that is yellow/brown/green?
Any guess as to what day it quit? Or why?
I read the Hatching Problem article and nothing seemed to fit the circumstances.
Thanks.

ETA: The Spoiler tool is really cool.

Sorry for your loss, but thanks for sharing!

I just found this:
http://www.cobb-vantress.com/products/guide-library/general/embryo-flip-chart/day-1---intro

It has close up pictures of what the embryo should look like each day. Take a look at it, maybe it will help?

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Quote: I should start by saying that these are peafowl eggs and peafowl have a very short egg laying season (May-August) in which they lay between 5-35 eggs, that's it.

The majority of last years low hatch rates were due to storing the eggs too long at room temp, which often exceeded 75º. Another problem was humidity in the incubator. Under hens right now I have several eggs that were stored for more than 10 days, a few that were stored at 18 days and all of those eggs had growth at day 5, so we'll see if they hatch. Last years egg did nothing, all 35 of the ones I stored too long at room temp.

This year I took weights on the date laid, date set, day 7, day 14, day 21 and day 24. The first two were set under a chicken hen, lost 16-18% from lay date, internally pipped on day 25, externally pipped on day 26 and zipped within 9 hours from pip. There are four under broodies that are due on the 31st, so it will be interesting see if/how they hatch and what their weight loss is.

-Kathy

 

[tommysgirl]

Darned Jays!

I have a couple of girls that like to lay in the sack of shavings in the feed shed. The Jays got in and broke but didn't eat the eggs.

My frizzle girl likes to lay in a dogloo dog house that sits out in the yard. It's an XL one and she goes way in the back but they darn Jays got her egg too.

I leave pen doors open when the girls are ranging so they can get in and lay eggs and grab a snack and a drink if they want to. Chased a stinking Jay out of there too but fortunately before it got anything.

I gave away three of my original flock on Saturday. Della, who has always had laying issues, and Vivian and Boom Boom my Red Stars who were both slowing down, having weak shell issues etc. They went to one of my colleague's parents. They will live in a big barn and have 2.5 acres on which to range for the rest of their days. They should be able to still get 6-8 good eggs out of the 3 of them per week but it feels good knowing I was able to thin my flock in this way.

I am down to 16 hens/pullets of laying age but three of them are broody and 2 are silkies so really I am down to 12. There are chicks coming up. But they don't count

@BCollie . I followed a simpler ff method. one bucket, keep about a half inch or so of water on top. Stir frequently, replace with additional feed when it gets low and repeat. Easy Peasy. I am going to add a second bucket this summer because some times it doesn't have time to reach full ferment before I feed it with the one bucket. But as long as you keep some as a "starter" once you get it going, you can keep it going as long as you want. I would say stirring it and making sure there is enough moisture are the keys and I just dip it out liquid and all. they don't mind the moisture and as the weather warms up it will help them to stay hydrated.

 

[tommysgirl]

I just learned about silver penciled cochin bantams...anyone know who might have some of those??

 

[tommysgirl]

I've recently had some mysterious unexplained deaths in the broody house and it's all when the lab is closed of course! The chicks are all fluffy and look happy until they die. No pasty butt or gasping.

Since I had a case of yolk sack infection a while back I'm wondering if this is the same thing. I had a broody sitting on eggs and I put them in the incubator because she hatched some and left the others. They hatched 10 days earlier than the incubator eggs. I cleaned out the shells but the chicks would have crawled all over the other eggs. I'm wondering if this allowed a bacteria to grow that would cause infection. I don't know when I quit being so GREEN and making dumb mistakes. Whenever that happens, I will be very grateful! It would have been far less costly to toss the 3 mutt eggs from under the broody than to lose 9 chicks from specific breeding.

Starting Thursday I've lost 2 a day and I'm not very happy at all! I can't pin point the problem because it doesn't look like anything.

Before that it was just one here and there so I didn't really alarm. Losing one or two out of 50 chicks doesn't shake me up - usually they are runts and you know they were going to die anyway. When I start losing one or more a day then I know there is something wrong.

I've two chicks, one of the first and the one from tonight, set aside for UC DAVIS to get Tues.
(Yes, wrapped in napkins, hiding in the fridge in sandwich bags, tucked away so no one opens them.

Don't know what else to do).

Is there anything you would do in the meanwhile? If it is yolk sack infection - is this treatable with something I can hunt down and buy on Monday? I'd like to preempt any more losses as 3 of the dead chicks are some of my new Basque flock. They were so happy and chunky. I hate to lose any more!

I am sorry you have had these losses. How frustrating! I hope that you are able to get to the bottom of it and it is my understanding that even if it were e-coli, it is spread through the fecal/oral route meaning your kids would have been ingesting chicken poo in order to contract it.