Hello all, ok, this may seem like rambling and I am sorry but I do not know the best way to explain it all... So here goes... In May of last year I bought baby chicks from a swap. Those babies were sick and ended up dying as well as infecting and killing almost all the rest of my flock. There were five roosters left out of 20 birds. 4 of those 5 roosters were butchered quite some time after the whole ordeal. At the end of May a friend and I ordered chicks and ducks from McMurray. I lost many due to fox in the area. Then I met another good friend and started getting chickens from her. (My other friend has gotten chickens from both of us) Several months ago I one of those chickens I got from her was a silkie roo. This roo is so precious to me but he does some odd things. Occasionally he will walk around with his head just bobbling around like one of those bobble-head dolls. I thought it odd but the thought went no further until today. Then my new-found friend (lets call her Sally) noticed one of my "McMurray ordered" chickens was not acting normal. This Pheonix hen would just sit still and fluff her feathers and was quite light in weight even though she ate and was active. Sally took her home and tried to nurse her to health but there was no change so i just took her back. Then, this late fall, I went into my coop to gather eggs and found my Mille Fleur Duccle hen (gotten from Sally) on the floor in the corner of the coop. When I picked her up, she was not breathing right. She would over extend her neck and make a funny noise as though she had Laryngotracheitis. She never had any signs of illness prior to that day. She died that night. When winter came I put all the chickens (36 of them) in the coop because I live in WI. Prior to this point I was cleaning the coop on a nearly weekly basis (the litter is hay). At this point I got the idea that I should let the litter pile a little to provide extra warmth for my birds. Not too long ago my "alpha" rooster died. I assumed it was because he was old (which he was) but now I wonder if he was sick. He went very slowly. He lost some of his enthusiasm and one day I decided to try to pick him up (he NEVER allowed that before). He was not nearly as heavy as he once was. Then one day he was laying on the coop floor and was dead in the morning. Nothing much happened for a while after that. Then I had 2 birds start sneezing. I began feeding garlic. (Btw I make a regular habit of feeding garlic and acv). I got another rooster from Sally. I think I have discovered that he has worms. He is in a separate area from the rest of my flock (all but 2 hens to breed). Now, here's my real turmoil. Since Sunday, I have discovered worms in the stool where this rooster is, I have found bugs on him and on one of my youngest pullets, my phoenix hen I mentioned a while back has suddenly and drastically taken a turn for the worse, and 2 of my young birds have "sticky" eyes. The phoenix hen quit eating and is now acing the same way my "alpha" rooster acted shortly before his death. Aaaaah! I am ready to pull my hair out. I have a mom hen and her I baby in a cage in my basement as well as three other cages with the three sickest birds... Btw, the youngest baby with the bugs (I think mites) is one of the ones with the sticky eyes. I am reading my poultry books and fear that I have more than one disease going on. I just began feeding a daily regimen of flax, fiber (psyllium husk), garlic, and DE. What I usually feed is a combination of oats with a little corn as well as kitchen scraps. I also feed oyster shell and have been feeding grit since winter started. I used to feed rye also but the chickens didn't seem to like it. Over the summer I fed the wheat I had planted. I believe some of this may have come from the pile up of litter that I allowed and sounds like that could have caused aspergillosis (brooder pneumonia). The coop has been cleaned a few times since then. I have traded birds with my two friends too many times and think this has added to flock stress. Also, Sally has one roo with a terrible case of mites and had a couple of hens die recently. My other friend has not had any birds die of unkown causes since summer. I have yet to hear back from her if she found worms or bugs in her flock. What do I do? Does anyone think these cases are linked together? Where could I have picked all this stuff up from?
