Help identifying illness in flock : Losing a chicken a week

[Girasole Chick]

For the past several weeks, I have been losing 1 chicken about every 5-7 days. These are adult hens that are about 1 year old. They start to act listless which worsens over a couple days, they look pale and then they die. There are no visible respiratory symptoms, no smell, no paralysis (they are upright, head down), no fluffed feathers.

Any idea what I'm dealing with? I fear I'm going to lose the whole flock at this rate.

Thank you.

 

[Yazoobelle]

I had one die last night of a similar condition. She was even eating and drinking fairly well, but it took about 5 days and she passed. The only other thing I noticed was she had a lot of grass in her poop and it was more green than usual and stained the towels green that I had her on. I hope you find out what's wrong! I'll let you know if I figure anything else out.

 

[Girasole Chick]

Here are some pictures of my lastest sick girl (and her poo). She is just a year old, ISA Brown. She will be gone by tomorrow morning if not sooner.

 

[Yazoobelle]

Poor baby. Mine did look very similar. I'll keep asking around...

 

[leedyfeathers]

I been having similar problems but by multiple symptoms and some very few and then death its been all over the board. I have tried to read up on things but at the rate I was having different issues were not helping me narrow down anything. I had a similar case my bird had the pale face stands around head withdrawn or down not fluffed and getting weaker by the hour. the only two things that I caught were the greenish white diarrhea poop that accompanied her and that looking up stuff to see what could it be found where I had placed moldy hay out for them to walk on over the snow.. not thinking they would eat it... by the way they will eat it. I had potentially poisoned my girls. so I sent her off to get a necropsy and poop from as many hens as there was available for fecal float. no results yet have to wait but soon as I do ill be posting it.

 

[leedyfeathers]

this looks like cocci but don't take my word for it. actually may be not brown enough

my birds were not that lethargic they actually pecked around a little feathers were not as unkept. she also has a strange stance I only had maybe two hins during last summer that looked similar only lasted three days after I noticed the standing like that. and again sorry didn't have any help for ya.

 

[Girasole Chick]

I have a brand new bag of Corid. I'm starting the flock on that today.

The sick chicken was dead this morning. No one else is acting sick as of today.

No bloody poos, but reading on Cocci, doesn't need to be necessarily, different strains I guess. Whatever strain mine has is killing them in a day or two after they start acting sickly.

After they are finished on the Corid, I am going to start giving them probiotics on a regular basis. I have some that goes in water, but also the feed I just got has probiotics and prebiotics in it. Maybe getting their guts healthy will help them fight stuff off easier.

 

[leedyfeathers]

Sorry for your loss.. maybe sending for test would be good idea.

 

[Eggcessive]

With the loss of chickens that often, I think it is wise that you are starting Corid to treat for possible coccidiosis. The dosage is 2 tsp of the liquid Corid, or 1.5 tsp of the powder per gallon of water for 5-7 days. Afterward, give them several days of vitamins with probiotics. Chopped kale would be a good source of vitamin K which will also help. Then I would worm the whole flock with
Valbazen cattle wormer, or SafeGuard liquid goat wormer once and repeat in 10 days. A necropsy can be done on a refrigerated (not frozen) body by your state vet if you lose another. Here is a link for that:
http://www.usaha.org/Portals/6/StateAnimalHealthOfficials.pdf

 

[leedyfeathers]

This book has been helping me put things together but im just not good at singleing out stuff when theres soo much similarity