Consolidated Kansas

[HEChicken]

HeChicken I'm so glad you have saved your turkey. Mine didn't end up having Blackhead as I confirmed in the necropsy but it certainly made me much more aware that I need to take precautions. I did however confirm that one of my peachicks had died from blackhead after the fact. So it's out there for sure. I treated my Tom with metronadazole but it didn't save him. He had gone septic from a leg injury. I did treat both hens with a full course of metronadazole though before I sold them to make sure. Better safe than sorry. Cold isn't supposed to kill the blackhead protozoa but heat will. I would be sure to clean up any of the poo you find just to make sure the other turkeys don't accidentally ingest it. The protozoa die quickly without a host so
that is why I am treating my turkey pens with sevin as soon as the snow melts and the ground is wet. I hate to kill earthworms but it seems like a better option than loosing turkeys. I am also giving cayenne pepper in the food as that is supposed to help as well.
Oh BTW extreme thirst is another symptom of blackhead so don't stop dosing him yet. You need 7-10 days of meds to make sure it has totally cleared him. I'm no expert I just spent days and days researching because I didn't know enough.

The normal dosage on the Metronidazole is 5-7 days. He has had 4 full days of it now and I am planning to do 7 though as he gets better he may be harder to catch, so I'll play it by ear and won't kick myself too hard if he only gets 5 days of it.

My tom never had excessive thirst as one of his symptoms - in fact, my concern was dehydration because he was neither eating nor drinking for about a week. I was so glad to see him out eating snow last night because it was the first thing he had taken voluntarily since this started. He did slow down once he'd eaten some though, and this morning was still in the coop when I went down there (fortunately, since it made dosing easier).

I wonder if Sevin in the pen is really a good idea? I am biased here, I'll admit, because I don't like to use any poisons on my property anywhere, but in considering future bee-keeping, I've been reading a lot about Sevin in particular and how devastating it has been to bee populations everywhere. And from what I read, the protozoa can blow in on dust so disinfecting one small area isn't any guarantee anyway.

 

[HEChicken]

Wow, it got busy all of a sudden, lots of posts while I was writing. KKB that eye doesn't look good. Hopefully the Agrimycin/Duramycin will do the e trick - if not, you might try Tylan 50 Injectable. I treated several birds last month with that and though their eyes were frothy, they had a little nasal congestion and puffy sinuses and the Tylan (5 days of injections, once per day) cleared them all right up. I've personally never had any luck with Duramycin but perhaps combined with the Agrimycin it will help them.

Trish - I love Spice Merchant but don't get there very often. If I'm going that way I'll check to see if they have it but I might also look around online.

The east coast is about to get hammered - I heard they are expecting up to 30" of snow in some places. So glad we are here looking forward to climbing temperatures, instead of there preparing to deal with THAT.

 

[chicken danz]

HEChicken I ordered like 5 pounds of cayenne from Amazon last year for the chickens. That believe me is a ton of cayenne. I'll have enough to treat food for the bird for the next 5 years! It was much much cheaper that way. You can expect to pay $30-$40 for that much including shipping but that beat getting a few ounces for $10 by a long shot. The biggest problem was what I bought came bulk in a big plastic bag. I think it would be a lot more worth while to buy it in a container it can be stored in. Just transferring it to other containers can be pretty hazardous.


HEChicken I also read that if you have turkeys that survive blackhead they will have the antibodies that will keep future generations from being susceptible to it. So the train of thought is to breed those turkeys which will protect the future generations. That is one advantage of the heritage breeds over the modern hybrids like the broad breasted birds. They have more built in immunity than the hybrid kind supposedly.
I am treating my pens to prevent future infections to be safe. I can't possibly treat every where. But the peafowl pens and turkey pens will be treated. I don't want them ingesting worms that can be carriers if I can help it. Just one more step as a preventative.
KSKINGBee I think the other hen is just taking a weather or move break. I was getting an egg every day like clock work. In fact it would be around 1:30 pm every day when they would lay.
There are so many diseases that cause frothy eyes. If it were me I'd be treating them all with tylan. It seems to be the most reliable for those kind of symptoms. I like the powder form of tylan because it sure beats giving shots. Even though it is expensive. I take an old water bottle or pop bottle and put a little sugar, probiotic powder and tylan powder in the bottom. Then add a very small amount of warm water and shake it. Then fill the bottle with cold water and mix that in the water supply for the birds. It is hard to get mixed up otherwise and they don't care for the taste so the sugar helps. The probiotics are just something I do so the gut flora doesn't get diminished. You can however use the injectible kind of tylan and squirt it directly down their throat if you don't want to give shots. It does cause sore throats sometimes though and if they are already coughing that could be a problem. I always order my tylan from Valley Vet cause I usually have ti the following day.
We are supposed to get to 34 today. It's still 25 but I'm sure hoping it continues climbing.
HEChicken I normally would not consider doing anything like putting sevin down. Mostly because it is hazardous to marine life as well. And like I said it is only going in my peafowl and turkey pens and there is no grass at all there...unfortunately. You could also use permethrin but it is very hard on any animals' nervous systems so I avoid using it as well. Another consideration would be to use lye and activate it with water. Would not work for your situation at all though because it would kill your grass. I used lye when I had dog kennels for several years. The heat kills eggs and bacteria. I never had a flea or tick or worms using lye.
I still believer regardless of anything else that maintaining good health is by far the most important step in keeping animals healthy.
I am very worried however with all the wild birds that have been congregating in this cold snowy weather. I just know they are bringing in disease. What can I do? They go straight through the chicken wire and such and come in the pens regardless. We seem to be the only food/water source around.

 

[Trish44]

Wow, it got busy all of a sudden, lots of posts while I was writing. KKB that eye doesn't look good. Hopefully the Agrimycin/Duramycin will do the e trick - if not, you might try Tylan 50 Injectable. I treated several birds last month with that and though their eyes were frothy, they had a little nasal congestion and puffy sinuses and the Tylan (5 days of injections, once per day) cleared them all right up. I've personally never had any luck with Duramycin but perhaps combined with the Agrimycin it will help them.

Trish - I love Spice Merchant but don't get there very often. If I'm going that way I'll check to see if they have it but I might also look around online.

The east coast is about to get hammered - I heard they are expecting up to 30" of snow in some places. So glad we are here looking forward to climbing temperatures, instead of there preparing to deal with THAT.

I did also see cayenne on eBay, but I don't know how it compares in price. Like you say just look around online for the best price. I may just get some myself & try giving some for a preventative, it sure can't hurt at all. Danz, I had read it helps with worms as well. I read that the chickens often carry the capillary worms, it may not be a problem for them but when they spread to other birds it becomes a problem. HEChicken I also read that pheasants & other wild birds can bring in the Blackhead. I really feel like that's where Danz & I both have issues with things coming in. I have a lot of wild birds here with all of the trees we have on our property & there are water sources across the road from us & down the hill at my friend's house as well. There are ponds all around us here, so that brings in even more birds & then we have the tree cover & evergreens with berries for them to eat as well as other trees & berries for food. It's just not something you can avoid with the wild birds it seems like. I used to feed them but don't so much any more since I need to buy so much feed for my chickens & other birds. I would rather have the sunflower seeds for my chickens than feed them to the wild birds.

Me too HEChicken, we have had ENOUGH of this white crud. It has hit the south really bad this year though too, they just aren't used to that.

 

[HEChicken]

Love that smiley!!! I can only imagine trying to transfer the Cayenne to another container. We have some masks around here somewhere - I'd have to hunt those down to even begin.

Yeah, I agree with the theory about birds who have survived an illness passing on the antibodies but I wonder if that is only if they survive it unassisted. Perhaps surviving it via medication doesn't do a thing to support the immune system?

Huh - I actually far preferred giving the Tylan shots to medicating the water. I do the wormer in the water when I want to worm all the birds anyway, but for medications I don't like to use that method because it ultimately means that healthy birds are also getting the medication - unless the bird is separated in a separate pen. But even then, I worry if they don't like the taste, they won't drink enough to be effective and/or will get dehydrated. That was my experience putting VetRx in the water. They didn't like it so they absolutely refused to drink out of that water bowl. It was 2 birds in a separate pen. When I finally gave in and got them a bowl of water without the VetRx in it, they dove on it and drank for ages. That told me all I was doing was dehydrating them - not doing anything for their symptoms at all. I found shots to be super easy and I knew the bird had the full dose. The nice thing about poultry is they have such great breasts there is almost no danger of hitting bone, and it is such a great muscle to inject into, that I found the injections to be no big deal - even when I was treating 5 at one time. Plus, in sub-freezing temperatures, I could inject and not worry that the medicated water would freeze.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

Quote:
Hmmm... that looks really interesting. I may need to give it a try. Getting oat bran though may be difficult. It is with the rest of the baking stuff at the grocery store? I know I can get 40 lbs of rice bran at the feed store. Been looking for wheat bran in bulk but no luck yet.

 

[chicken danz]

Well HEChicken my problem is that peafowl are NOT easy to catch or hold. And since the birds are kept in separate pens in general it's just easier to treat all the birds that get exposed rather than injecting each one. My birds don't care for Vetrx either but if it is their only water source they will drink it. If I am treating with an antibiotic, I don't however use vetRX because they do tend to avoid it. My first treatment is usually vetRX then if they don't respond well I use antibiotics. Unless the birds are obviously in poor shape.... then I go to the antibiotics first hand. I just don't want to give more antibiotics than necessary. First,viruses don't respond to antibiotics so you can only treat the secondary infections. Secondly bacteria evolves and you eventually can end up with a new resistant strain that the antibiotic won't eliminate. I believe since I was a pretty sickly child that having way too many antibiotics as a young person caused me to develop allergies to them and the ones I am not allergic to don't normally do much good. There are only a few antibiotics I can take successfully. I use as many natural solutions as I can to fight infections and sickness.

I do believe that the turkeys will form the antibodies regardless of treatment methods. Once infected a body naturally forms antibodies against that disease. I was a biology major initially in my first year or two of college and that was my understanding. I am sure it doesn't apply to all disease in all species. But if the body is capable of forming antibodies against a particular disease, once infected those antibodies should go ahead and form. Of course I've been wrong before so that may not be totally accurate... Since Blackhead is a protozoa and not a virus, it falls into a different area. But I do know that antibodies are formed against some protozoan infections for sure.
By the way HEChicken I was watching a video and reading about the Lyrebird in Australia. I'm surprised you have never mentioned them. I would so love to have a bird like that. Awesome! It's like a combination of a peacock, pheasant, and mocking bird deluxe.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

Wonder why your post is blank. Never had any good luck with the multi quotes and they were giving me fits when I was doing it about 30 seconds ago. Argh... Anyway, I really enjoyed baking with my son. He is great at it! He just doesn't like to eat it afterwards though...

~~Danz, the turkeys are in the hoop coop, I don't want to turn them out yet because of the two bronze toms are free ranging like all the birds do except the peas. I need to sell one tom if I can find a buyer. Only the little RP hen is laying so far, we get an egg about every three days, I am sure the cold is effecting the laying. OQB was the egg eater this time, she thought that the eggs were not fertile and that they had been cold and would not hatch. I try to tell her a little cold won't keep them from developing but she is a red headed Okie.... HeChicken, congrats on saving your tom!

have an issue in the pea pen now. We have had one of them coughing for a few days, and now we have three young ones with swollen, frothy eyes. I gave them a shot of Agrimycin and started with durmycin in the water. Durmycin is a soluble powder tetracycline hydrochloride. Don't know what the illness is but am hoping that antibiotics are the cure, no nasal discharge but we think it is a respiratory problem. We just finished a round of Roster Booster yesterday so they should be wormed. ~~**** computer wont let me post a picture. or emoticon. :mad

BYC site was shut down when I was trying to post last night, here is a pic of the pea.

KKB, that pea looks pretty bad. How about a dose of injectable Tylan? I hope your antibiotic in water works well for them.

tweety that egg bread looks good! Where do you find oat bran? I know you can buy wheat bran in the store, but I didn't know for sure where to find oat bran.

It's almost 32 degrees here, yay! It's supposed to be a high of 38 today according to the forecast & then get warmer every day after that. I know the chickens will be as glad as the rest of us. I can't wait for this crud to get melted off.

Congrats to everyone with their first eggs, that's always exciting. I still love seeing the little pullet eggs as each one starts laying, they're so cute starting out, like little miniatures.

I have 3 sets of eggs going into the hatcher today that are due Friday, wish me luck. Some of them are wheaten Ameraucana eggs & I am so hoping for some pullets in those, I need some new blood in that pen. The others are Speckled Sussex & BLRW. The 2 week old SS are doing great as well as the BCMs, Welsummers, & the three Barnevelders. The heritage RIR chicks are getting so big, I hope the weather stays good enough they can be integrated outside soon. I'll have to get current pics of them so you all can kind of see how dark their coloring is, they're not at all like the production reds or any of the hybrids.

HEChicken, I did read about the cayenne as well when I was reading. You might check with Spice Merchant in Wichita to buy it in bulk, they do sell spices by the ounce or pound. You could get a lot of cayenne in a pound I'm thinking.

Trish, I think it was Ashncarson who posted the recipe link. I'm wondering the same thing... where do we get oat bran? I saw Atwoods has the 40 lb bag of rice bran. I don't even think I can find wheat bran in bulk at Atwoods. Now that TSC on E. Kellogg moved to Augusta, it is much further from me so I don't go there any more. They may have the wheat bran I was looking for.

HEChicken I ordered like 5 pounds of cayenne from Amazon last year for the chickens. That believe me is a ton of cayenne. I'll have enough to treat food for the bird for the next 5 years! It was much much cheaper that way. You can expect to pay $30-$40 for that much including shipping but that beat getting a few ounces for $10 by a long shot. The biggest problem was what I bought came bulk in a big plastic bag. I think it would be a lot more worth while to buy it in a container it can be stored in. Just transferring it to other containers can be pretty hazardous.


HEChicken I also read that if you have turkeys that survive blackhead they will have the antibodies that will keep future generations from being susceptible to it. So the train of thought is to breed those turkeys which will protect the future generations. That is one advantage of the heritage breeds over the modern hybrids like the broad breasted birds. They have more built in immunity than the hybrid kind supposedly.
I am treating my pens to prevent future infections to be safe. I can't possibly treat every where. But the peafowl pens and turkey pens will be treated. I don't want them ingesting worms that can be carriers if I can help it. Just one more step as a preventative.
KSKINGBee I think the other hen is just taking a weather or move break. I was getting an egg every day like clock work. In fact it would be around 1:30 pm every day when they would lay.
There are so many diseases that cause frothy eyes. If it were me I'd be treating them all with tylan. It seems to be the most reliable for those kind of symptoms. I like the powder form of tylan because it sure beats giving shots. Even though it is expensive. I take an old water bottle or pop bottle and put a little sugar, probiotic powder and tylan powder in the bottom. Then add a very small amount of warm water and shake it. Then fill the bottle with cold water and mix that in the water supply for the birds. It is hard to get mixed up otherwise and they don't care for the taste so the sugar helps. The probiotics are just something I do so the gut flora doesn't get diminished. You can however use the injectible kind of tylan and squirt it directly down their throat if you don't want to give shots. It does cause sore throats sometimes though and if they are already coughing that could be a problem. I always order my tylan from Valley Vet cause I usually have ti the following day.
We are supposed to get to 34 today. It's still 25 but I'm sure hoping it continues climbing.
HEChicken I normally would not consider doing anything like putting sevin down. Mostly because it is hazardous to marine life as well. And like I said it is only going in my peafowl and turkey pens and there is no grass at all there...unfortunately. You could also use permethrin but it is very hard on any animals' nervous systems so I avoid using it as well. Another consideration would be to use lye and activate it with water. Would not work for your situation at all though because it would kill your grass. I used lye when I had dog kennels for several years. The heat kills eggs and bacteria. I never had a flea or tick or worms using lye.
I still believer regardless of anything else that maintaining good health is by far the most important step in keeping animals healthy.
I am very worried however with all the wild birds that have been congregating in this cold snowy weather. I just know they are bringing in disease. What can I do? They go straight through the chicken wire and such and come in the pens regardless. We seem to be the only food/water source around.

Danz, how much of the cayenne pepper do you add to the feeds? I'm thinking of getting some myself. I think I saw Trish said it works on worms too? That's a bonus. I've used the Rooster Booster triple worming pellets and they seem to help.

Where is this warmer weather the weather man kept saying? I don't see the sun at all from my office windows. I am so hoping the white crud will melt off fast! I would rather deal with mud than this packed down white crud that became sheet of ice. The dogs seem to enjoy this weather. They run around and roll in it. Ice and snow got into their coats but that didn't phase them at all. The snow did melt a little bit yesterday and I start seeing mud on the dogs now. Maybe I'll give them a bath when the weather warms up to the 50s this weekend.

Give me some sunshine! src="https://www.backyardchickens.com/styles/byc-smilies/bow.gif" /> That's weird. All the spacing is off and my emoticon didn't show up. Oh well...

 

[HEChicken]

Tweety, TSC doesn't have wheat bran either - in fact, it is almost impossible to get around here, which is ridiculous considering its a by-product of the process of making white flour and since the majority of baked goods sold in grocery stores contain white flour not wheat, that means there's an awful lot of wheat bran out there somewhere. Back home it is cheap, cheap, cheap and is in the baking aisle right alongside the flour. You can buy a 1kg bag for around 50c. And at the feed stores, we used to buy the 50lb bags to use as animal feed and I don't remember prices but they were really cheap too. Here, the only time I've seen wheat bran in the store it was a tiny package in the natural food section and it was about $6 for only a few ounces. Since I wanted it to raise my mealworms, there was no way I was paying that. I used oatmeal a few times but then I had family coming over to visit so I asked them to bring me some and I got two 1kg packages that lasted me a little while at least.

I asked the store employees at both Atwoods and TSC if they could order it in and they both looked at me like I'd asked them to order in some plutonium.

That's good to know Atwoods carries rice bran - they didn't have that when I was looking for wheat bran or I would have been thrilled to use it as an alternative.

I've been looking at cayenne pepper on both ebay and Amazon. Danz, I think I found the 5lb bag at Amazon that you got - it is $35. I also found a 6lb bottle of it (looks like a plastic bottle) on ebay for $27 plus about $7 shipping so it would still be cheaper than the Amazon one plus it would be an extra pound. I'm just hesitating because that really does sound like a lifetime supply. But if I get in the habit of doing it on a regular basis, I guess I will go through it. I'm also hesitating because I'm not exactly sure how to administer it. I feed dry pellets and don't know if it will stick to them and if it doesn't, will they actually peck it out of the feeder or will it just be wasted? So I haven't ordered yet but we'll see. It does also come in capsules (for those who want the benefits but not the heat). I wonder if some of those might be good to have on hand to dose an individual bird too.

 

[KsKingBee]

OQB puts cayenne in the ferment. I had a few one pound bottles of Tone's that came from Sams, she has been going through it pretty fast.