Flock Woes

[Goosebaby]

Kinda, I should take a class on chicken anatomy.

She seems to be perking up today. She's definitely got some strength back, fought with me and wanted to run out of the pen when I left the door open behind me.

She's looking better too. I had to take her off the roost this morning. Yesterday she tried to jump up to the low roost in the pen, but didn't make it. Quite a turn around after giving the first dosage of Monistat yesterday afternoon!

She's standing more now, but here's a couple from yesteday:

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Gave her the next dose of Monistat this morning. She is eating her crumble too. I had ground up some yesterday, but she didn't take to it. Later I saw her going at the feeder so that's a relief.

I haven't given the calcium tab today. But I will get her another hardboiled egg and crush up the shell after this post. I'm a little late with that, but super tired, took today off and dozed off for an hour.

Rescheduled my vet appointment for the goose. I'm close to rehoming with a recuse, they have farm and will provide him treatment. He's definitely got something going with this beak. I thought was just bite marks, but looks like cracks with dark spots. Hard to describe.

I think he also was getting into my overhead door styromfoam insultation. They chewed a big hole in it. Part of his issues just may be that he won't focus on his needs, because he's too busy hovering over Nessie in competition with Romeo his dad.

They go roving all over like a clown car Nessie leads the way, the son follows and the dad keeps pace so he can run the son off they're pretty much all three inseperable. He's definitely not lost steam, but looking pretty ragged from the original battles and whatever else now.

Hoping the Ivermectin does something for him. You can see pink on his arms and shoulders which have some woundings from the battles. The ganders would bite each others shoulders.

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@Goosebaby



To top it off now I think someone has worms...

I think it might even be the pullet I thought I was deworming with the expired Safe-guard... she has some really wet green and white poops last two days. Almost like when I first got her in December, she turned it around and that's partly why I was comfortable to let her out of the pen for this situation.

@Wyorp Rock you might recall my posts on my Liege Fighter pullet I had isolated to the porch.

Good news is she's pretty much accepted by Little Chief now and is running with the flock (for the most part.)

Attaching the droppings I think could be worms with possibly Sneetches.

So I'm not out of the woods yet.

Definitely scabs on the beak from squabbling. The feather loss is probably a mix of warfare and mites. Spring is rough!


As for your hen, I don’t know much about chickens besides reading, no actual experience, it could be yeast like the others have mentioned, a swollen abdomen is worrying, salpingitis or some other reproductive issue or infection?

 

[AGeese]

Thanks Goosebaby. Anyone have ideas on those last group of pics I posted yesterday? The white stringy poops? could those be worms?

 

[Eggcessive]

Those streaks in the poop are urates (kidney waste or pee.) It won’t hurt to worm with Valbazen 1/2 ml for a 5 pound bird given orally once and in 10 days, or SafeGuard liquid goat wormer 1/4 ml per pound given orally for 5 straight days (shake both of either one well since they settle.) Or you could ask your vet to do a fecal float to look for worm eggs.

 

[AGeese]

Those streaks in the poop are urates (kidney waste or pee.) It won’t hurt to worm with Valbazen 1/2 ml for a 5 pound bird given orally once and in 10 days, or SafeGuard liquid goat wormer 1/4 ml per pound given orally for 5 straight days (shake both of either one well since they settle.) Or you could ask your vet to do a fecal float to look for worm eggs.

Oh no... gout? I actually do have brand new safe-gard 10% paste. I just accidentally mixed it up with the expired tube when I was dosing prior. I gave up on the 4th day having realized this. It was expired in November 2024. So would I just be able to use the new safe-gard paste?

 

[Eggcessive]

I would have used the expired stuff up to a year after expiration date. I didn’t mean this was gout, but all poultry excrete white urates or a whitecap in their poop. Sometimes when dehydrated, they may have a little more of them. Not every dropping has them.

 

[AGeese]

I would have used the expired stuff up to a year after expiration date. I didn’t mean this was gout, but all poultry excrete white urates or a whitecap in their poop. Sometimes when dehydrated, they may have a little more of them. Not every dropping has them.

Well the thing that makes me unsure is that this pullet is a late bloomer, she had a bit of rough start. I saw this poop in December, this it seemed to be near normal, now we're back to this.

Anyhoo, to add to the list, now another Buckeye is starting to show signs of distress like her cousin Speckles. No talking, just standing there looking around, can't get up on the roost.

I wasted no time in treating her front and rear with monistate and giving her the topical Ivermectin I have continued to do as I can for the rest of the flock.

She's a beautiful bird, no sign of mites.

Well it has rained some and I've added to the water pans I've opted to dump them all including the kiddie pool. I had feeling about them earlier so I made sure the fowl ones were dumped yesterday.

I generally keep feeder pans of water out. I tend to add water, but when they're really fowl I'll replace them. From time to time if they're looking ok I'll just add some epsom salt.

Now I'm thinking of just going with strickly a drinker for the chickens with corid, and a tub for the geese to bathe.

 

[Debbie292d]

From time to time if they're looking ok I'll just add some epsom salt.

I believe you're doing this as it's said it helps with vent gleet, but I personally wouldn't want my chickens getting any more sodium than they get in their feed. If it's to try keep the water fresher, you could put a dribble of ACV in there. Ours is in nipple buckets mostly, so I add RV freshener to it to keep the algae out, but for ducks/geese, obviously nipple buckets won't work.

Probiotics also helps with vent gleet, so you could make a ritual of putting probiotic powder in their water a couple of times a week. The ACV acts like that too though.

 

[AGeese]

I don't put too much, but that's a good idea. I have probiotics and electrolytes and ACV I can try. All the pans, tub and pool have been drained, sprayed out, and refilled tonight.

Amazingly the girl who was starting to show the same symptoms as Speckles turned it around after a single monistat treatment last night. She is now able to get on the roost by herself and was fine all day so I'm calling her good.

As for Speckles I saw the first normal looking poop today. Her comb is looking super bright, and she's acting normal, is able to reach the sawhorse to roost, but not without a squawk. I was only able to get a single monistat treatment in before nightfall, but things appear to be looking up.

As for Lil' Romey @Goosebaby my vet also believes it's abrasions on his beak, and he thinks he's doing all this to himself. He gave me some itch spray to use twice a day. That's going to be a bit of trick. I'll probably give it to him before bed.

Now that the rain and wind have subsided it's impertive to get the straw out of the goose pen and spray it down. I'll replace the straw with mini flake that should be inhert.

I've got far less bites, I'm not seeing mites on any other chickens and I'm almost done treating them with the Ivermectin topical.

The Pullet with the urates seems to be coming around too! Thank goodness because I was about at my wits end.

Now it's just work around work to get everything cleaned out.

 

[Goosebaby]

I don't put too much, but that's a good idea. I have probiotics and electrolytes and ACV I can try. All the pans, tub and pool have been drained, sprayed out, and refilled tonight.

Amazingly the girl who was starting to show the same symptoms as Speckles turned it around after a single monistat treatment last night. She is now able to get on the roost by herself and was fine all day so I'm calling her good.

As for Speckles I saw the first normal looking poop today. Her comb is looking super bright, and she's acting normal, is able to reach the sawhorse to roost, but not without a squawk. I was only able to get a single monistat treatment in before nightfall, but things appear to be looking up.

As for Lil' Romey @Goosebaby my vet also believes it's abrasions on his beak, and he thinks he's doing all this to himself. He gave me some itch spray to use twice a day. That's going to be a bit of trick. I'll probably give it to him before bed.

Now that the rain and wind have subsided it's impertive to get the straw out of the goose pen and spray it down. I'll replace the straw with mini flake that should be inhert.

I've got far less bites, I'm not seeing mites on any other chickens and I'm almost done treating them with the Ivermectin topical.

The Pullet with the urates seems to be coming around too! Thank goodness because I was about at my wits end.

Now it's just work around work to get everything cleaned out.

Your vet could be right. When my geese have had that it’s either from pushing their bills through a fence to get at another gander or it’s from both ganders chewing on each other from opposite sides of a cage.

 

[AGeese]

Update.

The first really nice weather we've had, but I had to work. By the time I got off, Speckles was just singing the blues and since she's made such progress I decided I would like her out.

So she went straight to the garden bed and jumped in for a dust bath in the sun. All good until Little Chief ran her off...

I had to intervene several times because now she's the outcast. She did fight for her place a couple of times with the other hens. She's got lots of spirit. The buckeyes pretty much accepted her back and she went ranging.

Now her droppings are solid, but they look a bit off. I can see what looks like urates in these now: s



She's only had purina flock raiser, a little kalmbach natural layer sprinkled in here and there, not much. Free standing calcium, and an occasional hardboiled egg with shell.

She did get both doses of monistat today.

I didn't get to change any more bedding out, and even though we should get a break on the rain, looks like it will be windy... so not sure I'll be able to burn it. I may just move it into trash bags for now.