chickens dieing

[snoel]

I am hoping that someone can help me out. I'm afraid I don't even know how to describe what is going on. For some reason we have had two of our RIR die.
Initially the first girl began to act tired very suddenly. We spend a lot of time with our girls so it was very noticeable. She then stopped wanting to eat. Our 6 yr old son (who is her favorite) hand fed her and gave her water out of a little pail while he sat with her on our front porch. This lasted for a few days. Unfortunately she did not make it. Now the same thing has just happened again. The only difference was this girl spent a few days not wanting to go into her coop at night. Our girls are free range but always put themselves in at night. Instead she decided to lay on the wood pile outside their coop and we had to carry her in.
Both girls had the runs but neither of them threw up. I felt their neck and looked at them but they looked and felt the same as all the other girls. (not that I know what I am doing) Their vents looked fine and open. They where both just over 1yr old. They had an egg a day up until the winter when they slowed down. I expected that though.Then they all molted this spring and I have only had the very rare egg since.
The only other thing I can say is we have 2 Roosters now. I bought some Barred rocks this spring and 2 turned out to be roosters. They are about 4 months or so now. And are starting to drive the girls crazy. (Ah nature) All of our other chicken look fine but then again so did these girls until the sudden onset. We are concerned this will happen to us again and we won't have any new information as to how to help them. We are really enjoying them and our son is VERY fond of them but I have to be honest we are not willing to take them to the vet. Should the be wormed? Could they be egg bound even though they did lay normally before?
Having said all of this, does anyone have any ideas of how we can figure out what happened to our girls and how to keep our other girls healthy???
Thank you in advance for your help

 

[mnferalkitty]

It could be sooo many things it is hard to say, so I will just throw out a few things here. Heat, worms/parasites, poison on plants they ate. Sorry for your loss

 

[snoel]

Thank you for taking time to write. I don't use any pesticides at all on our lawn or garden. They didn't have anything crawling on them at all. We handle them all the time so we would have noticed. As matter of fact last year when we got them they had lice and we had to put powder on them to kill them. It worked very well and the girls were clear of the lice in one treatment.
Do you think I should worm the rest of them? Wow I didn't know the heat could be so dangerous to them. They have water out in several spots around our yard simply because they are free range and I knew they require a lot of water. They dig little holes in the shade garden or under our brush to sit in sometimes. They did that last summer as well.
Could changing their food be serious enough to cause a problem? I usually get their food at the same feed store every time but I haven't been able to make it there lately so I have purchased the last 2 bags in town instead. We do let them have scraps sometimes but that isn't new for them. We have done that since day one. What about the fact that I bought Barred Rocks this Spring? I kept them apart for several weeks while the babies grew up. They could see each other thru the gate if the older girls went over to look at them. They did check them out once in a while but never at any great length. They haven't had any problem getting along since i let them out together. Do you think I could have brought in a disease without knowing it? Their bedding is shavings. Should I remove it all and start fresh?
Thank you again for taking time to offer help

 

[janinepeters]

This is a tough one - could be so many things. Something contagious, since 2 were affected, but I don't know exactly what. Not likely nutritional, given sudden onset in only 2 chickens. I doubt it came from the barred rocks, because they were young and would probably have died before the reds, if they were carrying anything. Sometimes adults become carriers but don't get sick from diseases that kill young ones, but not the other way around.

I am with you on not wanting to take them to the vet. I think what I would do is wait and see if another dies, and if one does, take it for a necropsy, so you will find out the cause. Then treat, disinfect, cull, or do whatever needs to be done with the remaining flock. While you are watching and waiting, find out where you can get a necropsy done. A local vet might be able to do it, or a university, depending on what is in your area. Be sure to find out how they want you to package the chicken between the time it dies and the time it arrives in the pathologist's lab (on ice? cold but not on ice?). Yes, it will be an expense, but in my opinion more worthwhile than taking a sick chicken to a vet, because so often they cannot make an accurate diagnosis. After it dies, though, they can examine all the tissues.

I guess it would not hurt to deworm now, but I can't imagine worms causing such a sudden onset and rapid death....but I am no worm expert....

No, changing the brand of feed would not cause this.

Good luck, and pls keep us posted!

 

[snoel]

Well unfortunately I'm back with another dieing chicken. This time it is a Barred Rock Rooster. They are about 6 months now. Today is his his 4 day of not wanting to walk around. We have been feeding him by hand and he was drinking well. Today he seems to not be doing well at all. My son fed and watered him this morning and all was well except of course not walking. I just came in and he had feces all over his butt and he does not want to eat or drink. I have put him outside in the shade in the grass and I cleaned up his butt.
I am certain someone told me something before about chicken loosing this ability to walk etc. Maybe I read it on here. Now that I am writing it I think I remember it was a young girl and her grandma was not going to be able to care for her sick chicken while the family was away. l will check through the posts and see if it was from here or another blog etc. I hope we can find out what is going on and prevent another chicken from dieing. If anyone has an
idea of what this might be or where the article was that I am remembering part of, would you please help us out.
Thank you in advance
Susie

 

[janinepeters]

Are you sure that he actually has difficulty walking, or is it that he just feels so crummy he doesn't feel like walking or doing anything at all?

Are there any other symptoms? Diarrhea? Difficulty breathing? Do his comb and wattles look normal?

Maybe this will help: I have found that when a chicken is sick and you cannot tell what the cause is, they sometimes pull through if you just keep them hydrated. Dip the beak in water (perhaps add a electrolytes/vitamin mixture, if you can get it from your feed store) several times a day, just like you do to a baby chick to start it drinking. This sort of forces some water in. If other birds bully him, you can separate from the flock. I've had several sick chickens that I treated in this way, and they recovered, even though I never found out exactly what the cause was, and never took them to the vet.

IMO, dehydration is often the final blow that leads to death, so the goal is to prevent that long enough for the bird's own recuperative power to kick in and fight off whatever ails them.

 

[snoel]

We now have him set up inside in a large dog crate. We put shavings in the bottom and put in small bowls of food and water. I washed up his butt for him and toweled him off before putting him in. We put some sugar in the water but we will pick up something proper tomorrow for him to drink. My son was putting his head into the water (gently I promise) to get him to drink but he wouldn't. I syringed some in. After the third time he started to drink from the bowl on his own. We stayed with him and he ate and drank a fair bit. I have left him with a night light on and will check him before we go to bed. My son said a prayer for him today. I only hope he will still be there in the morning. It is so heart breaking for the kids to keep loosing the chickens when we have no idea what is going on. They seem so content and then suddenly one of them is sick : (
I looked up Mareks today and it seems to be a very good description, to my husband and myself, of what we thought the other chickens went through. I hope we are wrong and we will find that keeping him hydrated as you suggested will be enough to get him through. This evening looked better for him then this afternoon that's for sure. We had to go out late this afternoon and I was pretty sure that when we go home this evening he would have already died. The other chickens had taken all of his food and water so we decided we had no other option than to bring him inside. Fortunately I have lots of dog crates so it was an easy transition for him IMO. It is wire so he can see everything around him. The room will be quiet for him and it will be a nice break from the flies bugging him I'm sure.
I'll let you know how things look tomorrow.
Susie

 

[snoel]

Well when we got home from church I took the rooster out of the crate to see if he needed his butt cleaned up gain. Since I had done it by myself yesterday I was going to get my husbands help so that I could use both hands this time. I had been trying to hold him up with one hand so that he didn't lie right in the tuba and get his entire body wet. Thankfully I got help this time because when I started we immediately saw tiny maggots. The poor guy was sure in distress. I did an extra good job this time but he definitely got wet all over. I use many towels and then I actually used my hair drier on him on low to get him dried because i didn't want him to be cold. He looks beautiful again but it took a lot out of him. He is resting now.

I spoke to a friend at church today that used to be a vet. He said he didn't do much with chickens but didn't think that there was a high chance that Mareks was what the first two chicken died from. Since that group had come from a commercial grower he said they would have been vaccinated and therefor that was not likely the cause. The Barred Rock rooster came from an individual breeder.

He said there could be a vitamin deficiency that is the actual problem with not wanting to walk/ being able to walk. He said he would try to look somethings up in his old books because he hadn't much experience with chickens. I will see him again tonight so I'll see if he found anything that might help us to understand if there is anything we can do.

I think our real frustration is not knowing what this is so we know if we can help the chickens or not. I do want to know what it is so we can help prevent the others form getting it as well. At this point we don't know if we can help and are doing the wrong thing or if there is nothing that could be done anyway. We feel so hopeless.

 

[Fraunie]

Sorry for your losses, We are having a similar situation with just one pullet so far.....hoping for the best for your roo!!

 

[janinepeters]

Could the whole problem be fly strike? Did you look over the vent area carefully? The maggots could have just been on the poop, which would not account for his illness, but if they had burrowed into his body, then that could certainly make him miserable, and will eventually kill him if he is not treated. If they had burrowed in, do a search on fly strike and read about how to get rid of the maggots.