guest hen sick w/cocci symptoms.. running out of space to seperate.

[nicoh]

Hi,

I have a small backyard flock of 6 healthy 18 weekolds and 2 1 year olds. My friend went on vacation and is boarding her 2 2 year old hens with me (ee and sebright). I put them in their own isolated run/coop. The EE has developed cocci symptoms after 10 days here. The other one is looking perfectly fine, so I strung up some flexible plastic netting between the two of them (now each has about 20 sqft). I don't really have any other predator proof enclosures to fully separate the sick EE. I am going to the feed store to look for corid today, but I can't do that until the afternoon -- the bloody poop symptoms started yesterday. Do you think the EE picked the cocci up from my dirt/large population of wild birds? Is it likely the other guest hen will come down with it? My birds all seem fine at this point, but then I read that they probably have an immunity to my local strain of it from being raised from chicks here. any other ideas on what I can do?

thanks.

 

[TwoCrows]

Your chickens will have immunity to things that others do not and visa versa. So it is possible that the EE indeed picked up the cocci from being in a different yard. There is no guarantee the other hen will get it, it depends on the immune system of that hen.

But for all precautions, never mix your flock with anothers birds. Not unless you are willing to lose a bird or several of them. All new birds need quarantine for 30 days before mixing, so you are doing the right thing in keeping them separate.

As far as the sick hen and the other bird, if you have a garage with a good door on it, you could cage them at night in the garage to keep them safe from predators at night and then release them the next morning into your quarantined area. I would do all I could to keep these 2 hens from mixing with my birds.

And when they are finally back home, you need to bleach and vinegar or use a 10% ammonia solution to the entire area these birds were in.

I may sound paranioid here, but I wouldn't want to risk my otherwise health flock.