Help! Chicks are dying! Larthergic, gasping, seizures and then death. Possible coccidiosis?

[Haunted55]

Wow, that's great info, thanks Haunted55! I never thought of that, sadly. How often should one do this in the case of this problem, any idea? Anybody know about how long it'd take to see results? I'd imagine a few hours, kind of like people (but with feathers).

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/806231/dilemma-help-please

As you can see I am treating a duck right now for what I believe is botulism. The trick with the charcoal is to get it into them as early as possible and in an amount that will do some good. For my little girl I used two capules and am thinking I should have used 3. Not able to tube her I had to rely on filling a syringe and giving it to her that way. I know not all of it got into her, but what did worked.

If you use the right amount of charcoal, one dosing should be enough. The charcoal binds the poisons in the gut to itself and carrys it away in the poop. Would you need or want to do a second dosing of it? If it made you feel better...sure. Will it do any good? Maybe, but it would have to be done soon after the first to do any good. The charcoal is only going to get the poisons still in the gut. It will not get anything that has already passed into the blood stream.

How long? Depends on the poison involved. I was ecstatic to have my Beatrice alive 3 hours after treatment. To have her still with me now and gaining everyday is a miracle. Botulism is one of the worst things to deal with and full recovery can take months depending on how much neurological damage was done. In most cases, I would say anywhere from 3 hours to 24. It will depend on how quickly the charcoal is given after the ingestion of something poisonous and how much the gut has been slowed because of it.

 

[Lilorp14]

My plimith Rock is having similar issues she's gasping for air and the back of her head is bleeding I found her in the chicken cage and she was gasping for air and we brought her inside our house and looked down her throat and nothing was there at first we thought that she was having stroke,or she got bread stuck in her throat or an egg burst inside her but we don't know:/

If anybody knows what is happening to my chicken please say something

 

[ThePlow]

I have had the same issue as the original post. Started with 50 baby Buff Orphingtons and am now down to 24. Within 6 hours they began dropping like flies. No amount of 95 degrees in a practially sanitary environment with medicated food and sugar water with electrolytes fed through a dropper to every single bird has done nothing. They also received their Vaccination from the Purely Poultry before shipping. I have also ordered from them 6 times without a single bird dying. I will get a replacement for the birds but I wanted to also share so others know that this can possibly happen regardless of your best intentions. The birds were also delivered a day before planned which means they spent less time in transportation. My only guess is that the shipping process stresses the birds which somehow affects neurological development or causes organ failure through stress hormone metabolism (just softballing ideas in a completely unsubstantiated manner). I doubt an illness could kill birds as fast as they were dying, but I guess anything is possible.


Anywho, interesting academic articles on the topic of death in baby chickens.

https://academic.oup.com/ps/article-abstract/61/8/1766/1593404?redirectedFrom=fulltext

https://academic.oup.com/ps/article...fect-of-light-intensity-on-broiler-production

https://academic.oup.com/ps/article/88/4/798/1557530/Field-study-on-broilers-first-week-mortality

 

[Organic chick mom]

To get to the point, a friend of mine has chicks who are running around and appear healthy one day, and then dead the next. They are appear healthy one moment, but then they will lie down and start gasping for air or having dry heaves. A few moments later, they begin having seizures and die.

After some research, I found other threads with similar situations and most people ended up treating for coccidiosis, but I'm not convinced. There are no dark or bloody stools, and the symptoms just don't seem to match up. Any ideas?



If you'd like more details, here's the longer story version of the question. "I was over at a friends house last night helping her brace a chick with bad legs. All of the chicks were running around normally at the time. When we finished the brace, we went back out to the pen and saw a buff silkie chick (about 4 weeks old) just lying there. I thought that she was having dry heaves, but she could have been gasping for air. We took her inside and tried to get her to drink, but within 5 minutes the chick seized up and died. It worried me, but since the others all looked fine, I told my friend that it could have been a fluke and I went home. This morning she called me saying that another chick passed away in the exact same way. It was a 1 1/2 week old red star chick."

Were your chicks immunized? I bought 5 chicks from TSC and all the pullets are dying one by one. Fine one day, lethargic the next, gasping for air, then seizure and immediate death. The only process my chicks went through was getting a shot. I educate people about the truth and harms of vaccines, and believe this is what is doing this to our chicks. I'd love to know if this has happened to an unvaccinated chick. Please respond. Chicks don't just have seizures. I've been crying for days now, as I raise these chicks 100% organic and natural...I expected EVERY SINGLE ONE to thrive, but they are dropping quickly. It is so sad. The manager at TSC agreed that many chicks die due to complications from the vaccines, and others are just not strong enough to survive the attack of disease and formaldehyde.