chicken diarreha issue

[peep this]

1) What type of bird , age and weight.
we think a NH Red. age? young, has only laid once. Wt: about 3 lbs. She is a rescue chicken, came to us with a lot of missing feathers and a raw abrasion on one side. Has since feathered out significantly and has put on a lot of weight.

2) What is the behavior, exactly.
Behavior is normal. But has runny stools, enough to cover the back end of her body.

3) How long has the bird been exhibiting symptoms?
24hours? Just noticed this afternoon

4) Are other birds exhibiting the same symptoms?
No

5) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma.
Her rear end is not particularly well feathered, don't know if it's because of a molt or recovering from her earlier injuries.

6) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation.
We have been getting a lot of cold rain and the girls have not had much time to get out and eat grass.

7) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all.
Eating layer pellets, corn, leftovers: wild rice, broccoli, pasta, pumpkin seeds and guts

8) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc.
Poop is thick, but still runnier than usual. Dark brown, dirt brown

9) What has been the treatment you have administered so far?
Cleaned caked on poop off her rear feathers with a warm soak. Blow dried and put back outside.

10 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet?
Should she be isolated from the other chickens? Don't know if it's a vet visit or not.

11) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help.
Nope. maybe later I can get one.

12) Describe the housing/bedding in use
Bedding is pine shavings with straw over it. Cleaned once a week (due for a cleaning tomorrow)

I'm hoping this is just a result of diet and eating a lot of dirt and grit. She seems fine otherwise.
Thanks for your help
Deb and Lizzie

 

[Judy]

I'd probably try cutting back on the extra foods, esp. if they total more than 10% of her diet. Has she been wormed?

Have you seen this? http://www.chat.allotment.org.uk/index.php?topic=17568.0

Not quite sure why you didn't get an answer. Guess you just got lost in the traffic. Hopefully there will be more with this for a bump.

 

[peep this]

Thank you for getting back to us.
That was a good reference link, but kind of gross. I'm glad I was not eating!
I've been feeding her pumpkin seeds because I read that they are good at worming, but she has not been "formally" wormed. Any product suggestions?
Deb

 

[Judy]

Wazine first, then ivermectin or a similar wormer. But there's more to it than that. Often (if not always) you are giving a cattle or other livestock med so you need to know what has been found on here to be apparently safe for chickens. Wazine only kills one type of worm, roundworm. but if they have a heavy load and you give the broad spectrum wormer first, you can kill them or make them very sick from the dead worms and their by-products.

Sooo -- I'm going to give you a link to a good thread on worming. I don't know all the doses anyway, and there's more than one way to do it: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=213065&p=1

It has about 17 pages but the meat of it is mostly in the first few pages.

 

[Mervin]

Quote:
I noticed you fed them pumpkin seeds and pumpkin guts. You might want to be careful with the pumpkin, I've read that the flesh is a natural laxative. I mention it only b/c I seem to have the same issue. I have one Barred Rock, the rest seem to be okay, who seem to get diarrhea whenever I feed pumpkin or winter squash. About five weeks ago I threw some butternut squash in the pen and noticed the next day that she seemed to have an issue. One two more occasions I've thrown in some Jack-o-lantern guts with the same effect. So, no more squash and pumpkins for my flock.