Is it Cocci?!?!

[Skitt-Chicks]

When I went to check on my girls this morning I noticed one was still roosting. I checked a few hours later and she was still there. I then noticed bloody feces in the coop. One of her eyes has been shut as well. She's drinking, but not eating. I picked up some Sulmet at my local feed store, added it to the water as well as Diatomaceous Earth. I have yogurt available for her as well as the rest of my girls. I also have her isolated from the other girls. I cleaned out the coop, wiped everything down, new bedding/shavings. I just recently changed my hens to Nutrena layer crumble as one just began laying last week. (My hens are 21 weeks and had been on Nutrena medicated chick crumble.) We use a nipple watering system, hanging feeder, and clean out the coop weekly. They free range almost daily, but are in the coop for the most part of the day while we're at work. Our girls are fed scraps on the ground in the pen. Thinking this is where she picked it up. I am treating the entire flock for Cocci. Is this sufficient, or overboard?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I think treating all of them now is wise. If one is having trouble they all need to be treated.

The scraps have nothing to do with it. The cocci bug lives in your soil. You can’t avoid it. They pick it up by pecking at the soil. You’ll notice them eating gravel for grit or just pecking at dirt. They get nutrients from dirt but they also pick up the cocci bug if it is there. They are all going to peck at dirt.

Having some cocci bugs in their system is not a bad thing, it’s actually good. Normally they will develop an immunity to that specific bug in about three weeks of continuous exposure. So if yours have been on the ground for over three weeks they should have an immunity to the cocci bug in your soil. But there are several different strains of that cocci bug. Immunity to one strain does not give immunity to all. It sounds like somehow a new strain recently showed up. That’s why you are seeing a problem.

The cocci bug is pretty species specific. Turkey cocci does not infect chickens for example. But all it takes for the bug to spread is for infected dirt to show up in their area, maybe on someone’s shoes or even a car or truck tire, maybe for a feed store parking lot or someone else that has chickens. It doesn’t take much.

Different strains attack different parts of their digestive system. There are only a couple of those strains that normally cause bleeding, but these are the stronger more dangerous strains because of the parts of their digestive system they attack. You need to treat all of them because if one has it, they all have it.

Having a few cocci bugs is not the problem. It lets them develop immunity. But when the numbers get out of hand they get sick. That bug thrives in wet warm soil that has chicken manure in it. If your soil is dry the bug doesn’t do all that well. But if the soil is wet and warm the bug thrives. The chickens eat enough of those bugs that the numbers get huge in their guts. That’s normally when you have the problem. Keeping a brooder, coop, or run dry is usually pretty effective at keeping the numbers down, but your problem sounds like you got unlucky and got one of those really strong strains.

It’s always possible it is something other than cocci so keep an eye on them. But I don’t know what that would be. She’s acting sick and someone is pooping blood. Those are huge warning signals. It is important to treat them all now as you are doing because it can quickly cause severe problems.

Good luck with it.

 

[Eggcessive]

Welcome to BYC. It does sound like coccidiosis, and possible respiratory disease, so sulmet or sulfadimthoxine would be good to use. Corid treats more strains of cocci, but does nothing for respiratory. Look for other symptoms such as nasal or eye drainage, coughing, or chest rattles. Here is a good link to read about the respiratory diseases and a link on coccidiosis:
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044
http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/poultry/coccidiosis/overview_of_coccidiosis_in_poultry.html

 

[Skitt-Chicks]

Thank you both for responding so quickly! I was surprised she got ill so quickly. The neighbors sometimes bring over garden scraps, so this would possibly bring in the new cocci?? I hear once they have a certain strain, they're immune to that particular strain. Do I throw out eggs during treatment? And how long after treatment do I throw out eggs? The girls just started laying too! Grrr.

 

[Skitt-Chicks]

Way overdue of an update, but wanted everyone to know that after a round of Sulmet ALL my girls all survived Cocci! As for the sick girl, she came out extrememly healthy and is now Top Chicken in the Hen-house! We threw out the eggs for 6 weeks, they all stopped laying literally the day we could start eating them again! GRRRR!!! Just 3 weeks ago all started laying again, yay!!