ChrisNTiffs
Hatching
My husband Chris and I are very new to raising chickens. I have always wanted a small "farm" with chickens pigmy goats and maybe some pigs. Well this past spring we decided to start trying to make that dream come true.
We bought 6 Rhode Island Reds mixed gender and 6 Rhode Island Reds all hens from local tractor supply. After the first night of having them we lost one. So we decided to try and place it not realizing we would have to buy 6 more. But we said what the neck why not take the leap.
Everything was fine with all 17 of them. Until about 2 months ago. We noticed one of the hens wasn't acting right. She seemed sick. So we pulled her from the coop and secluded her just in case. She was pretty much just bones and feathers and was a little smaller in size compared to the others. We figured maybe the others were just pushing her out of the way since she was so small. After a week of being secluded she seemed to be doing better. She was secluded for about 2 weeks before we noticed another hen not acting right. So we secluded her as well and actually had to force feed and water her. She died about a week later. The same thing kept happening over and over again to the rest of them. They weren't able to hold themselves up, their poop was runny and not healthy looking. We lost 5 hens this point. Then we noticed poop with blood in it. So I started looking online and came across a thread on here talking about Coccidiosis. So I began searching for Corid but everywhere was out of it. Finally this past Saturday we found it and started treatment. It saddens me because now we are down to only 8. 2 roosters and 6 hens. We have moved them out of the coop into a temporary one hoping it will help too.
Like I said we are completely new to raising them so we are looking for any help/advice we can get.
Thank you in advance.
We bought 6 Rhode Island Reds mixed gender and 6 Rhode Island Reds all hens from local tractor supply. After the first night of having them we lost one. So we decided to try and place it not realizing we would have to buy 6 more. But we said what the neck why not take the leap.
Everything was fine with all 17 of them. Until about 2 months ago. We noticed one of the hens wasn't acting right. She seemed sick. So we pulled her from the coop and secluded her just in case. She was pretty much just bones and feathers and was a little smaller in size compared to the others. We figured maybe the others were just pushing her out of the way since she was so small. After a week of being secluded she seemed to be doing better. She was secluded for about 2 weeks before we noticed another hen not acting right. So we secluded her as well and actually had to force feed and water her. She died about a week later. The same thing kept happening over and over again to the rest of them. They weren't able to hold themselves up, their poop was runny and not healthy looking. We lost 5 hens this point. Then we noticed poop with blood in it. So I started looking online and came across a thread on here talking about Coccidiosis. So I began searching for Corid but everywhere was out of it. Finally this past Saturday we found it and started treatment. It saddens me because now we are down to only 8. 2 roosters and 6 hens. We have moved them out of the coop into a temporary one hoping it will help too.
Like I said we are completely new to raising them so we are looking for any help/advice we can get.
Thank you in advance.