chickens dying daily! HELP!!!!

[BayouGypsy]

I haven't really researched much, but could West Nile be a possibility?

 

[ten chicks]

Anything could be a possibility,but have you given any type of coccidiostat just in case it is a coccidiosis overload and if not,why as it has been suggested several times. There is no point in guessing.

 

[casportpony]

Anything could be a possibility,but have you given any type of coccidiostat just in case it is a coccidiosis overload and if not,why as it has been suggested several times. There is no point in guessing.

That's what I would do, but making it their only source of drinking water might be an issue? That said, I would catch all the birds in the age range of those that are dying, lock them up and treat them, period.

-Kathy

 

[ten chicks]

I haven't really researched much, but could West Nile be a possibility?

While chickens may get virus,they do not usually exhibit symptoms,they develop antibodies to virus,which makes them good sentinel animals in tracking virus in areas.

 

[thecityman]

PRELIMINARY RESULTS ARE IN!

I could not be more impressed with our state lab. THey received the bird at 9 am today and called me at 11 am with a preliminary assessment based only on the physical dissection and exam- ie no microscopic slides or lab tests are done yet. The very kind, helpful lady who phoned was a Dr. (vet or ph.D I don't know) and made the following observations:
1) The bird was very thin with almost no fat anywhere on her body.
2) There was an abnormally high amount of blood in the intestinal track.
3) The lower intestinal track was more watery than usual
4) The bird had a great deal of decomposition, even though it just died yesterday and had been kept cool ever since-including in route.

She went to some length to repeat the fact that the final test results may very well show something different, but based only on what she saw via the exam, she suspects........ Coccidiosis.

I had included a letter in which I listed every conceivable bit of information I thought could possible have an impact, including the dead opossum, my spraying of fruit trees (she asked for name of the spray and active ingredients, but doubts its an issue), the fact that baby chicks live and eat and drink the same thing as the dead ones, the fact that my pond water is really low and could have been an issue-especially since I saw tiny life forms in it, and so on. We went through all these fact and she was extremely informative and offered what I felt were very educated/experienced/informed opinions on all those things. I was most interested by the baby chick issue.....she said it was likely had to do with the life cycle of the parasite. That the baby's may have it but it hasn't reached a point where its causing serious harm/death, whereas the group of 4 month old's that all the deaths occurred in could have all been exposed at the same time in the past and it just now reached the overload threshold that caused their death.

The good news: Thanks to people on this board, I actually HAD ALREADY STARTED TREATING FOR THIS 2 DAYS AGO (just in case) and have had no more deaths. I suppose that also lends some support to the diagnosis?

In his/her post on this thread, tenchicks seemed to be a bit aggravated that I had not already started a prophylactic treatment, and I think that critisizim is fair. I had started treatment by the time of that post, but I now think I probably should have been treating my chickens for this all along. Do most of you do that? My only defense, and I'm not saying it is a good one, is that for 4 years I've had chickens and I keep them well fed, provide good shelter, etc and have never had any death or illnesses (except predators) so I just didn't think it was a big deal. Should I have known? Yes. I suspect tenchicks and others would say if I'm going to take the responsibility of having an animal I need to be informed enough to provide an acceptable standard of care, and that is true. If you wondering, of course I feel very bad that many of my chickens died from something that likely could have been prevented. Its a shame, its irresponsible, and it will not happen again. The lady from the lab said most small hobby chicken owners don't treat or even know about cocci and I shouldn't feel bad, but she was probably just being kind and either way, I should have known and treated my birds. I can only hope that this experience will help others on this site who read this thread to consider preventative treatment of their birds. The first thread in the forum when I logged on was from someone asking for help and saying they may have cocci, and I know there are hundreds of others over time on here as well. So I am not alone, but maybe my experience will encourage others to treat their flock before they go through what I just did.

Thanks for everyone's help and concern. The lab lady said the full work up will be done in about 10 days and I will get an e-mail with the final results. I will post them on this thread when I get them.

 

[Eepster]

Glad that you figured out what was wrong. I have never had cocci with my chickens, but my dad has had 2 or 3 goats die from it.

 

[BayBay Peepers]

I'm glad to hear it's getting figured out. I hope everything goes smoothly from here on out with your treatment. Thank you for the update. I myself have never treated for cocci, but you can bet I'll be doing a lot more reading into it.

 

[tridentk9]

"If you hear hoofbeats don't think zebras" Sometimes the simple answer IS the answer. Sigh, and sometimes we're just too close to ground zero and brain farts happen.

I hope no new things to worry about show up on the rest of the tests. We are so lucky that testing is available and free (or very little $).

 

[aatx]

I'm glad you have a probable answer.

To your question to us, I have never treated for cocci, either as a preventative or as a treatment. I did not use medicated food. I did use fermented food and I started bringing in some dirt for them at around 2 weeks old to slowly get used to the soil and hopefully build up immunity.

My chicks are 11 weeks old now, been outside for about 6 weeks. I still go outside each day and just spend some time observing them, watching for any signs of coccidiosis. I haven't double-checked the actual medical supplies, but my dad says we do normally keep corid around (they have goats) and I have a close-by Tractor Supply store. If I ever even *suspected* they had coccidiosis, I would start treatment immediately with the corid as I don't believe it would be harmful even if they didn't have it.

So, that's my "plan of attack' that, so far, I have not had to do.

 

[thecityman]

Once again, I am very appreciative for the people who have responded on this thread, and especially for your honesty. I was under the impression that most good chicken owners just give some type of coccidiosis prevention medication as a responsible safeguard against the parasite....much like I do for my goats. Now that several of you have been honest enough to admit that you do not do that, I feel much better.

But I'm not sure if we are all just being a little bit neglectful or not. So from those who know, please respond to my question: Should all chicken owners give coccidiosis treatment periodically through a chickens lifetime, or should it only be treated if there are symptoms and/or known exposure to cocci?

Thanks.

Kevin