Cornish X 4 wks old - Sick!

[just_chicken]

We recently lost one Cornish X chicken, a few days ago. No symtoms that we noticed. Today, we found another that is gasping, just laying there, won't eat or drink, white film over eyes (do they have two sets of eyelids?).

We've recently had rainy weather here in Michigan (yesterday and today). Also very cool weather. They are in a moveable pen, with protection on half. They are eating non medicated chick starter, 25%. We also had a bag of 28% turkey starter to get rid of that we've started mixing in - could this be any sort of problem? Also, one bag of feed did get a little wet, and had a few hard chunks that looked a little moldy. I picked them out and didn't think any more of it, until now. We also let they're feed run low in the evenings, and feed them in the mornings.

The rest of the flock looks OK, but we don't really don't know what we're looking at - this is our first batch ever.

Does anyone have good book on chicken diseases and cures that they recommend and any ideas on what to do perk up our one sick bird? We put ACV in the water for the rest, and hopefully that will do something.

Thanks -
Jennifer

 

[CoopCrazy]

That is called flip.. Sadly your bird will not recover form this.. It is caused by therr bodies growing to quickly and there heart gives out... Are you free feeding? Or doing 12 on 12 off? At this time you should be restricting feed to 12 hours a day.. Other wise oyu will see more of them doing this... Also you need to lower their protien they really shouldnt have more then 22% but 20% would be better ...

 

[just_chicken]

Thanks much for the reply! We (or my husband) dispatched the poor thing rather than waiting for it to die on it's own. Good to know about the percent protein. I was trying to use up this batch of food, but maybe we won't. We have one unopened bag of 25%, an opened bag of 25% and the 28% turkey starter. I was hoping the rationing that we are doing would be enough, but I guess not.

Jennifer

 

[CoopCrazy]

Sadly you have to expect to lose a few... I havent heards of anyone having all thier birds make it to butcher no matter how careful they were.. Good luck with the rest