Cankers, Fowl Pox, or ???

[Eggcessive]

I do still wonder about the yellow plaques inside the beaks of the other chickens, since the hen who died and was necropsied did not have those. It could be that just that hen had enteritis, and the others may still be afflicted with something different. If you lose another, get a necrospy.

 

[chickenmomma16]

I really hope that you will solve this thing very soon!

Me too!

I do still wonder about the yellow plaques inside the beaks of the other chickens, since the hen who died and was necropsied did not have those. It could be that just that hen had enteritis, and the others may still be afflicted with something different. If you lose another, get a necrospy.

I will definitely ask about it.

 

[chickenmomma16]

I do still wonder about the yellow plaques inside the beaks of the other chickens, since the hen who died and was necropsied did not have those. It could be that just that hen had enteritis, and the others may still be afflicted with something different. If you lose another, get a necrospy.

I asked about the mouth lesions and this was her reply: It is possible these lesions is likely bacteria access the rest of the body.

Still no definite culprit. We should have the results later this week as to the identity of the bacteria.

Most of the birds are improving on Penicillin except one hen who is still not eating. She’s lost quite a bit of weight too. All I can do is support her the best I can.

 

[Kiki]

I asked about the mouth lesions and this was her reply: It is possible these lesions is likely bacteria access the rest of the body.

Still no definite culprit. We should have the results later this week as to the identity of the bacteria.

Most of the birds are improving on Penicillin except one hen who is still not eating. She’s lost quite a bit of weight too. All I can do is support her the best I can.

 

[chickenmomma16]

And the winner is............ Bacillus cereus!


This is what my final report said:

 

[Eggcessive]

Thank you for the followup report on the bacteria. Sounds like an opportunistic infection. Hopefully, others will have more oplinions.

 

[Kiki]

And the winner is............ Bacillus cereus!


This is what my final report said:
View attachment 1381242

Food poison...interesting.
Did you offer lots of scrap treats?

 

[chickenmomma16]

Food poison...interesting.
Did you offer lots of scrap treats?

I will email her in the morning asking for more specifics on how they could have been infected. Interestingly, I RARELY offer treats. I’m honestly too lazy to bring them out there, I have to set up my 9mo old daughter with a monitor aimed at her play pen just to give the girls a few scraps. So I usually just trash them. The report mentioned dairy, and we don’t have dairy in our house. I don’t have any scratch either. They weren’t free ranging very often either. I’m stumped. They only get Nutrena, Country Feeds “Egg Producer”, oyster shell, they have Stall Dry on their poop board, pine shavings in their coop, and 1yr old Cedar “play” chips in their run to keep them above the mud. We had a rat issue that has mostly been resolved so the could have eaten some rat turds. That’s about all I can think of that they got into.

I ended up loosing a rooster right after I finished their antibiotics. One day he was eating, breeding, dust bathing, crowing and the next morning he’s on his death bed and died by noon. Not sure if it was related to this bacteria. I had just been thinking how good everyone looked after I spent some time watching them and hand feeding them some mealworms.

Everyone seems to be completely better now though. Let’s hope it stays that way!!

 

[Kiki]

Here is some reading:
B. cereus is a soil-dwelling bacterium which can colonize the gut of invertebrates as a symbiont and is a frequent cause of food poisoning. It produces an emetic toxin, enterotoxins, and other virulence factors. The enterotoxins and virulence factors are encoded on the chromosome, while the emetic toxin is encoded on a 270-kb plasmid, pCER270.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2863360/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/bacillus-cereus
https://www.thermofisher.com/blog/food/fact-sheet-on-bacillus-cereus/