Have you tried treating them for coccidia?
Free ranging on Martin Farm ~ Our journey from bust to breeding.
- Thread starter FreeRanging Hen
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #22
Yep, totally creepy. We moved away before the restraining order ran out and didn't update our address, to avoid being found again.
The accident was my almost 5yo with too much affectionate love for the chickie. I walked off to do something quickly and didn't supervise properly. Loved to death
Completely my stupidity and fault.
One sickly Australorp left
The accident was my almost 5yo with too much affectionate love for the chickie. I walked off to do something quickly and didn't supervise properly. Loved to death
Completely my stupidity and fault.One sickly Australorp left
Do you think it might be coccidiosis????
- Thread starter
- #24
It's a possibility. I have since found out that there are more than one type of cocci and not all chicks show blood in their poo.
I plan to find out if our local ag department offer necropsies at all.
I plan to find out if our local ag department offer necropsies at all.
Last edited:
Sorry to hear about your chicks. Marek's disease causes roughing of the skin around the feather follicles. http://www.thepoultrysite.com/diseaseinfo/90/mareks-disease
I hope you figure out what is causing their illness and your future chicks/chickens do great!
Posting to follow. What did you find out and how are the chicks?
Last edited:
- Thread starter
- #27
Hello all.
It has been a very busy couple of months here. I haven't had much of a chance to hop on the computer and update our story.
So as you know, we tried three hatches over the months of December and early January. I thought I'd give a quick recap, to save anybody having to go back and read again
Usually I wouldn't attempt in these months because they are our hot summer months, but we had been having such a mild summer, that I decided I would just risk it.
Our first incubation went great, until lockdown when we had a summer storm mess with the temperature and humidity, resulting in massive temp spikes after the first five chicks hatched and cooking the rest of the hatchlings before they could finished internally pipping.
Our second went rather well for such damaged shipped eggs. Half of the eggs that I knew were good at lockdown, made it through hatch.
Our final hatch wasn't so successful. We hit the worst luck, with multiple days of power outages and a few days of extreme heat. By these days, I had devised a system of keeping the incubation room cool enough to counteract them, but two fell on days that were powerless, so I think they were just too stressful for the nine viable eggs. Only one of these eggs hatched, but the poor little thing was deformed and only lasted 24 hours, despite my best efforts. I packed the incubator away and have been patiently waiting for our cooler weather to arrive before I start incubating again.
As you know, I started losing chicks to an unknown cause.
After seeking much advice, asking many questions and researching many possibilities, I had ruled out most of the suspected causes. Suggestions included pasty butt, lack of grit, protein deficiency, Coccidiosis, Marek's and bird flu. I can't tell you how many industry, pharmaceutical and vet manuals and studies on poultry diseases and illnesses I read, to compliment the blogs, discussions and general articles I had scoured through.
Still without a full understanding, I had lost 4 of my first 5 hatched beautiful chickens and the last was showing the same symptoms.
Lucky was showing the symptoms a bit differently. The only way I can describe it is 'slower'. He had the same symptoms, but they were less severe and took longer to progress, which gave me an idea of what may be happening thanks to something I had previously read when trying to figure out if it was something else.
So I was left with one suspicion in mind.... Vitamin deficiency.
With this in mind, I started treating him with extra herbal vitamin supplement, still cautious and warily at first, as there is no dosage recommendation for small chicks.
He started to improve. He started to eat and drink unassisted and finally started to walk again (something that hadn't happened before with the other chicks), but sadly I think his body was too tired and he passed away overnight.
When one of the second hatch chicks started to show the same symptoms and was unable to walk, I didn't hesitate one second. I knew that proceeding warily would only result in death again, so I just took a chance and gave the vitamin supplement undisputed and ad lib. The recovery was amazing! The little chick turned around overnight and was up and walking the next day. Within two days, you couldn't even tell she had been sick!
I've received a fair bit of criticism for my choice to go medication free in raising my chicks. I understand it, because I know not everybody has done the amount of researching and reading I have, in my attempt to make this path work and they hold pharmaceutically and industrially influenced fears about chicken raising. I understand that there is a majority of people who place their faith and trust in the pharmaceutical industry.
I don't. I don't medicate my family and I don't medicate my animals.
I believe in natural health and prevention, healthy organic living and natural herbal healing where possible and I extend that right to my animals also.
Taking this path means that I have to do a lot of independant research to find our alternative ways.
When I started looking for ways to raise chicks without coccidiostat medications, I was unable to find much info that I could put into practise.
Other chicken breeders and bloggers overseas had trialled coccidiostat free feed vs coccidiostat feed and confirmed what I had suspected. That they are unnecessary.
One breeder even found that she lost more chicks to cocci in the medicated feed trial group, than in the non medicated feed trial group.
I had similar findings between my first two broods. I lost half of my first lot of day olds a few years ago, to coccidiosis by bringing in just one infected chick. They were all fed standard medicated chick crumble.
My second brood, I didn't lose a single one to coccidiosis. They were fed my first ever trial of fermented feed. They were among the whole flock of chickens that died while we were having trespasser issues. I could not and still cannot determine the cause of their deaths, but there was not one single symptom associated with coccidiosis.
Upon research, I found that coccidiosis is in the gut of every chick. It's in the soil and it's in the mother hen's faeces. A chick would be exposed to this naturally and even eat the mother hens feaces which should also contain good gut bacteria, in order to build an immunity to it before it was exposed to too much of it later in life. This is the way of a natural immune response.
Think of it in comparison to human candida if you will. We all have it, but it causes us no problems until it multiplies out of control. If we keep out gut health in check, we keep candida and internal parasites in check.
The same goes for animals.
The use of natural yoghurt, raw unfiltered apple cider vinegar and fermented feeds provides probiotics and probiotics. These are the good bugs that keep guts healthy and tackle bad bugs. Using these, combined with good brooder hygiene can keep coccidiosis in chickens at bay.
I chose to trial fermented feed as a sole chick raising feed because I couldn't find a non-medicated certified organic chick starter available to me, when I went looking a couple years ago. Medicated feed just wasn't an option. Nor was soy.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find a fermented feed recipe designed for chicks either. If I couldn't find the recipe needed after many months scouring poultry posts, discussions, blogs and articles, there was no choice but to pioneer the way myself.
So I had to research and trial my own again, hoping that I had it right.
I didn't and I will be the first to admit that I had the recipe wrong. I didn't use nearly enough of the herbal vitamin supplement, because I was scared that perhaps too much could do harm. I was worried that too many fresh herbs could do harm, so I cut them back a bit. Then I ran into problems, but didn't consider them to be a factor.
I was stupid, I made a mistake. I had the most beautiful Australorps, but I lost them because I was scared of giving them too much of a good thing. I won't have another chance of those beautiful birds gracing our property with their beauty. This makes me sad, but I know this was my own doing.
I went scouring the internet again, hoping that by now there was at least ONE product available in Australia that would suit what we wanted. I needed something that I could use in setting up my flock again. I can experiment another year, I just want to get my flock started and if don't need to experiment the perfect chick fermented feed recipe for now, I won't.
I was in luck. I finally found an Australian producer of Australian certified organic chick starter that was coccidiostat free. I sent my hubby to grab the biggest bag he could, from the ONE supplier in our state, that is three hours drive from us.
My beautiful chicks have grown so much and not a single symptom or illness in sight..... And still 100% coccidiosis free, on a coccidiostat free diet
One year, when I have lots of chickens, I will trial a fermented grain recipe again, because we will only be truly self sufficient if we can grow our own chicken feed, but now I have a trusted starter crumble that I can supplement it with while perfecting the recipe
For now, I'm happy to have found a starter crumble to use, that doesn't compromise our beliefs, our needs and our way of living. Even if it is a very expensive bag of feed.
**photo's and links to come in next post
It has been a very busy couple of months here. I haven't had much of a chance to hop on the computer and update our story.
So as you know, we tried three hatches over the months of December and early January. I thought I'd give a quick recap, to save anybody having to go back and read again
Usually I wouldn't attempt in these months because they are our hot summer months, but we had been having such a mild summer, that I decided I would just risk it.
Our first incubation went great, until lockdown when we had a summer storm mess with the temperature and humidity, resulting in massive temp spikes after the first five chicks hatched and cooking the rest of the hatchlings before they could finished internally pipping.
Our second went rather well for such damaged shipped eggs. Half of the eggs that I knew were good at lockdown, made it through hatch.
Our final hatch wasn't so successful. We hit the worst luck, with multiple days of power outages and a few days of extreme heat. By these days, I had devised a system of keeping the incubation room cool enough to counteract them, but two fell on days that were powerless, so I think they were just too stressful for the nine viable eggs. Only one of these eggs hatched, but the poor little thing was deformed and only lasted 24 hours, despite my best efforts. I packed the incubator away and have been patiently waiting for our cooler weather to arrive before I start incubating again.
As you know, I started losing chicks to an unknown cause.
After seeking much advice, asking many questions and researching many possibilities, I had ruled out most of the suspected causes. Suggestions included pasty butt, lack of grit, protein deficiency, Coccidiosis, Marek's and bird flu. I can't tell you how many industry, pharmaceutical and vet manuals and studies on poultry diseases and illnesses I read, to compliment the blogs, discussions and general articles I had scoured through.
Still without a full understanding, I had lost 4 of my first 5 hatched beautiful chickens and the last was showing the same symptoms.
Lucky was showing the symptoms a bit differently. The only way I can describe it is 'slower'. He had the same symptoms, but they were less severe and took longer to progress, which gave me an idea of what may be happening thanks to something I had previously read when trying to figure out if it was something else.
So I was left with one suspicion in mind.... Vitamin deficiency.
With this in mind, I started treating him with extra herbal vitamin supplement, still cautious and warily at first, as there is no dosage recommendation for small chicks.
He started to improve. He started to eat and drink unassisted and finally started to walk again (something that hadn't happened before with the other chicks), but sadly I think his body was too tired and he passed away overnight.
When one of the second hatch chicks started to show the same symptoms and was unable to walk, I didn't hesitate one second. I knew that proceeding warily would only result in death again, so I just took a chance and gave the vitamin supplement undisputed and ad lib. The recovery was amazing! The little chick turned around overnight and was up and walking the next day. Within two days, you couldn't even tell she had been sick!
I've received a fair bit of criticism for my choice to go medication free in raising my chicks. I understand it, because I know not everybody has done the amount of researching and reading I have, in my attempt to make this path work and they hold pharmaceutically and industrially influenced fears about chicken raising. I understand that there is a majority of people who place their faith and trust in the pharmaceutical industry.
I don't. I don't medicate my family and I don't medicate my animals.
I believe in natural health and prevention, healthy organic living and natural herbal healing where possible and I extend that right to my animals also.
Taking this path means that I have to do a lot of independant research to find our alternative ways.
When I started looking for ways to raise chicks without coccidiostat medications, I was unable to find much info that I could put into practise.
Other chicken breeders and bloggers overseas had trialled coccidiostat free feed vs coccidiostat feed and confirmed what I had suspected. That they are unnecessary.
One breeder even found that she lost more chicks to cocci in the medicated feed trial group, than in the non medicated feed trial group.
I had similar findings between my first two broods. I lost half of my first lot of day olds a few years ago, to coccidiosis by bringing in just one infected chick. They were all fed standard medicated chick crumble.
My second brood, I didn't lose a single one to coccidiosis. They were fed my first ever trial of fermented feed. They were among the whole flock of chickens that died while we were having trespasser issues. I could not and still cannot determine the cause of their deaths, but there was not one single symptom associated with coccidiosis.
Upon research, I found that coccidiosis is in the gut of every chick. It's in the soil and it's in the mother hen's faeces. A chick would be exposed to this naturally and even eat the mother hens feaces which should also contain good gut bacteria, in order to build an immunity to it before it was exposed to too much of it later in life. This is the way of a natural immune response.
Think of it in comparison to human candida if you will. We all have it, but it causes us no problems until it multiplies out of control. If we keep out gut health in check, we keep candida and internal parasites in check.
The same goes for animals.
The use of natural yoghurt, raw unfiltered apple cider vinegar and fermented feeds provides probiotics and probiotics. These are the good bugs that keep guts healthy and tackle bad bugs. Using these, combined with good brooder hygiene can keep coccidiosis in chickens at bay.
I chose to trial fermented feed as a sole chick raising feed because I couldn't find a non-medicated certified organic chick starter available to me, when I went looking a couple years ago. Medicated feed just wasn't an option. Nor was soy.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find a fermented feed recipe designed for chicks either. If I couldn't find the recipe needed after many months scouring poultry posts, discussions, blogs and articles, there was no choice but to pioneer the way myself.
So I had to research and trial my own again, hoping that I had it right.
I didn't and I will be the first to admit that I had the recipe wrong. I didn't use nearly enough of the herbal vitamin supplement, because I was scared that perhaps too much could do harm. I was worried that too many fresh herbs could do harm, so I cut them back a bit. Then I ran into problems, but didn't consider them to be a factor.
I was stupid, I made a mistake. I had the most beautiful Australorps, but I lost them because I was scared of giving them too much of a good thing. I won't have another chance of those beautiful birds gracing our property with their beauty. This makes me sad, but I know this was my own doing.
I went scouring the internet again, hoping that by now there was at least ONE product available in Australia that would suit what we wanted. I needed something that I could use in setting up my flock again. I can experiment another year, I just want to get my flock started and if don't need to experiment the perfect chick fermented feed recipe for now, I won't.
I was in luck. I finally found an Australian producer of Australian certified organic chick starter that was coccidiostat free. I sent my hubby to grab the biggest bag he could, from the ONE supplier in our state, that is three hours drive from us.
My beautiful chicks have grown so much and not a single symptom or illness in sight..... And still 100% coccidiosis free, on a coccidiostat free diet
One year, when I have lots of chickens, I will trial a fermented grain recipe again, because we will only be truly self sufficient if we can grow our own chicken feed, but now I have a trusted starter crumble that I can supplement it with while perfecting the recipe
For now, I'm happy to have found a starter crumble to use, that doesn't compromise our beliefs, our needs and our way of living. Even if it is a very expensive bag of feed.
**photo's and links to come in next post
- Thread starter
- #28
Just an update to explain our drop off the face of the internet and end of this thread.
My husband was killed shortly after my last post.
We lost everything. Our home, farm, animals, everything.
We haven’t been ready to start over for the past few years, but now we can’t wait to find a new home and start again.
Looking forward to getting involved in the BYC community again.
My husband was killed shortly after my last post.
We lost everything. Our home, farm, animals, everything.
We haven’t been ready to start over for the past few years, but now we can’t wait to find a new home and start again.
Looking forward to getting involved in the BYC community again.
Oh I'm so, so sorry for your loss, I can't even begin to imagine what you and your kids must have gone through in the past few years.
I'm sure you havent' - it takes time even for the smallest start to healing
At least your husband won't be tormenting you any longer. So sorry for you, I hope you and your children can feel safe now.
Your thread was so interesting, I hope if/when you start up again. You will give us the new story
Your thread was so interesting, I hope if/when you start up again. You will give us the new story
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