Help please for chickens in North East England

[dermeister]

Hi,

I've just lost a 3 year old speckledy who had yellow diarrohea. She'd not been great for about 7-10 days and we tried everything we could to help her. We took guidance from this website but it isn't easy with so much differing guidance and a lot clearly coming for the US. The yellow diarrohea was the most obvious problem.

She became lethargic and stopped eating the day before she died. She was still drinking some water and I honestly thought she was getting better.

We felt it may have been a compacted croup and tried massaging it to help but to no avail. It was so frustrating as she seemed calm and not panting. Her eyes were okay and she never even whimpered. She didn't appear to have an impacted egg either.

We really look after our girls and worm them, use apple cider and protect them from mites etc.. However, I still feel guilty and wish I could have done more.

Considering that we are in the North East of England and South of the Tyne, I'd really appreciate some help on the following:

- Contact details of a vet that actually understands chickens and can offer genuine help rather than just offering to put her to sleep.
- What should I have on hand to help. i.e. Anti-biotics. How can I get these as everything seems to be with prescription only. Will a vet provide a prescription without me taking a chicken to the vet?
- What else should I have on hand to help?

We now have two speckledys and two columbian blacktails.

Thanks and the help is really appreciated.

D

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

Hi there

Sorry to hear you lost one of your hens Have you wormed them at all? It could be coccidiosis, here is a thread that I'm sure you will find helpful ~ https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1065569/yellow-foamy-poop

Here are a couple of chicken friendly vets nearish to you ~

http://www.robsonprescott.co.uk/morpeth-whorral-bank-branch.html

http://www.sandhillvet.co.uk/

As for prescriptions they won't give them unless they see the bird in questions. You can't get them without a prescription.

Wishing you the very best of luck

 

[jayn56]

Hi, you won't be able to get any antibiotics in the uk without a vet seeing the bird. I lost a chick that was very preventable because a vet stalled and chick was dead b4 test results came back. Even told the vet myself with research to boot to back it up what was wrong. Chick died next day.
In my experience, prevention is the best line of defence- food with antibiotics in is best then follow up with cider vinegar with garlic for most other things. A very good place to go to local to Scunthorpe (where I'm at) is paddock farm poultry in derrythorpe
https://m.facebook.com/pages/Paddock-Farm-Poultry/404380982996565
Full of good advice, very quick to reply on Facebook for advice, sells just about everything a cucks mum could want! They put me straight on a few things.. Always come away with some innovative ideas for my chucks.

 

[jayn56]

Ps if it was coccidiosis you'd know... Blood everywhere from poo. It's pretty much too late when you see the blood too. X

 

[dermeister]

Thanks Yorkshire Coop and Jayn56.

I'm not convinced it was coccidiosis and there was certainly no blood. However, that doesn't mean that it wasn't. When we brought her indoors to keep her warm, all that was present in the litter was this yellow discharge.

My thoughts were that if I see this again should I take the chicken to a vets ASAP. The problem with Yorkshire Coops very kind advice is that the vets are so far away from where I live which is in the Durham area.

I do treat the chickens with flubenvet and had done so recently.

Should I have done more?