Dying chickens

[dollydylo]

I am hoping someone can give a bit of advise!
We lost one chicken to an upper respiratory infection early June 2010 after buying 4 new chickens and ducks to join our original flock of 6 chickens and one cockeral. Soon after this 2 chickens started sneezing and looking off colour (one new and one of our original girls). We gave them antibiotics from the vet and wormed all the chickens.
We have since lost 2 chickens a week after each other of peritonitis, and are waiting for the postmortem results of the latest death on Friday (this was the older sneezing one).

I am giving them citricidal in their water at the moment as I have heard that is good, but the new girl is still sneezing and another new one has her back hunched and tail down. They all still seem to be eating and drinking well. So, we have 2 of the original 6 girls left and they have just started laying again (both looking slimmer than before and one with a pale wattle), 4 new girls who should be about laying age and not started yet. The cockeral and ducks seem ok at the moment! Any ideas on what could be causing the peritonitis? thanks!

 

[True Grit]

Hi and

. I wish I could help

 

[dollydylo]

Thanks! Latest chicken died of pnuemonia and some lung disease. Took another sick hen to the vet yesterday who thinks we have acute scepticemia killing off our flock. No idea what is causing that

. Let's hope the meds he gave us save them all.

 

[rcentner]

good luck, I hope you can save the rest of the flock.

 

[fiberart57]

I'm sorry for your loss. It's hard to lose them.

Peritonitis is usually caused by internal laying and I'm not sure there's a solution. But it's possible that they found something they thought was delicious but was actually harmful like some food with glass or something. Have they gotten into anything that could have caused damage to their digestive tract?

I would suggest some good nutritional support for them in the form of easy food to digest and extra protein. Hard boil or scramble some eggs mash them up and add some plain yogurt or even water to make a gruel for them. You could get baby meats and feed it to them. Get some oatmeal and cook it for them. Anything to make their food easier to digest and get the nutrition in their bodies.

Also, at this point, I would be adding electrolytes to their water for some more vitamins. You can get them in powdered form at the feed store, just be careful with the directions and make the solution diluted to the proper concentrate which is very little powder and a lot of water. Don't be tempted to make it stronger; they need the hydration from water.

Good luck, Mary

 

[MissJenny]

Hi and

. I am so sorry for your losses -- no doubt this is very very stressful for you. I don't have any answers either. I am guessing that you did not quarantine the new birds from your original flock. It can't be stressed enough how important bio-security is to the health and safety of our birds. We protect them diligently from the predators we can see, but often think little of the predators we can't see, namely disease.

I wish you the best of luck managing this difficult situation. It is very important to find out specifically what illness is killing your birds -- some illnesses can have long-term, devastating effects, such as not being able to ever sell eggs or birds from your property. In the search engine in the upper right of this page search "respiratory illnesses" .

Best of Luck,
Jenny

 

[dollydylo]

Hi There
Thanks for all the responses and advise. We recently had lots of magpies and ravens eating the chickens food, so think they might have passed something on (we have since changed the feeder to one the chickens have to stand on which has kept the wild birds away). They love the boiled eggs, and I am keeping the shell in too for added calcium! They all seem to have perked up in the last couple of days, so hopefully this will continue