Lost a chicken. Any ideas?

[jdragon]

Lost: One purebred white leghorn hen. Just over 3 years old. Noticed she was hanging out on the other side of the pasture yesterday and this morning she was close to the feed area but acted like she had a broken leg. The other chickens were walking on her. They (9 hens and a rooster) share a pasture with three pygmy goats and I thought maybe one had been too rough or that the neighbor's cat had injured her but there were no cuts or abrasions. This afternoon she was dead (and recently before I found her as her muscles were still moving but she was no longer breathing). Picked her up and liquid came out of her mouth (cloudy opaque). No smell. Pushed on abdomen and the same liquid came out the back end. It was very fluid filled. Very little muscling on breast plate which leads me to believe she's been sick for awhile but hid it well. Neck curled when I found her. No mites or bugs visible. All feathers and scales intact - no broken bones that I can find. The weather has been unusually dry here but yesterday it turned back to the normal cool seattle weather. Chickens get all-they-can-eat layer pellet and pasture but they have also been stealing my goats' all stock feed. Coop is lined with wood shavings but sometimes they roost in the hay feeder. All the poop I see looks normal. My leghorns had seriously slowed down their laying the last two weeks but after I removed that hen each of the remaining white hens dropped an egg. We did have a coccidia problem with the goats in early May. Water was treated with Sulmet but I stopped at the end of May. Restarted that today. No sneezing, coughing, runny noses, drooling or eye puffiness that I've seen. Probably won't go to a vet but would like to treat the remaining birds as a precaution.

I was thinking it might be Marek's with the lameness issue (no idea what the vaccination history is) but with the age does this sound more like CRD? And with the coccidia history could that be coming back and somehow cause lameness? Am I missing something else entirely? If only I could bleach the entire pasture! So, aside from treating the water with Sulmet (and probably giving them yoghurt treats), and bleaching/scrubbing down the coop, what else should I do? Thanks.

 

[California Ducken]

bump
Sorry about your chickie!

 

[threehorses]

Does your stock feed contain urea? Or is it allstock like a horse/cattle/mule feed? Our chickens eat our horses' feed (even sweet) and have for years with little effect.

I'd say that definitely she died of emaciation, but what caused it is the mystery. Had you wormed them twice a year? Your chickens should be immune to coccidiosis if they were exposed in May. Since you're using Sulmet, please give them all a dose of yogurt or a probiotic (if you have Probios, etc, for your goats) daily. You should also do that for your goats to prevent scours after any medication or worming. Only don't use yogurt if you use a -cycline or mycin drug - use Probios then instead.

Are you certain no mites or lice?

Possibly mareks, but it's also possible that she was injured internally and that she couldn't handle it with her emaciation.

If you decide to worm, I'd use Wazine first please - because you don't know how heavy their parasite load is. Then you can use something like ivermectin or levamisole in 2 weeks.

I'd be apt to say her lameness, if not from a goat accident, might have been due to her upcoming death because of emaciation.

Definitely consider the worming if you haven't in over 4 months, particularly with other livestock around. Also rule out anything like compost piles, maggots in manure piles, algae water, stagnant ponds, soured or wet feed or grain, kitchen scraps that might have been off, etc. Those could cause botulism which could also cause that sort of death but usually with profuse runny green droppings.

By the way, I think the liquid was simply crop and kidney contents released after death. The curled neck was death throes, not disease, unless it occured while she was still sitting up.

I'd really build their nutrition up with some boiled mashed eggs, yogurt or probios, for a few days. Depending on how many you have, you can also use baby vitamins (Enfamil PolyViSol non-iron formula) at 2 drops at the side of the beak daily, or even 3 drops for a week to build up their blood. In multiple bird cases like this where I needed boosted nutrition, I have used RedCell if you have that for your goats. Spritz it on the food or use a capful of redcell to one gallon of feed, mixed well, every other day for a week.

I hope that helps.

 

[jdragon]

Thanks for the advice! Other chickens (11) are all doing well so it's still a mystery but hopefully I'm doing alright for the rest of the flock. I have some probios so I am adding that to their feed now to go with the Sulmet in the water. I did run some fecal float tests on my healthy chickens and goats today and didn't see any parasite bugs/worms there so I doubt that was the issue but I will start them on a worm regimen regardless (goats have always been on one but it didn't occur to me that chickens should be too). As for mites, I did a tape test on one of my (now very unhappy) healthy chickens (didn't think of that in time for the dead chick but that might have been MUCH easier - good thing my DH is a good sport) and a really good visual inspection on the dead one but I didn't see anything that looked like a mite. It is possible that she hopped the fence and got into the compost though. Not very likely, but possible. Right now I'm leaning towards the injury theory (I hope I hope - only because injuries aren't contagious). My other birds seem to have a bit more meat on them but I'll be keeping a much closer eye on them just in case. Thanks again for your help. Still newbies at this chicken keeping thing but with BYC people around we just might figure it out.

 

[threehorses]

Well I'm very very glad to hear that the others are doing so well. Wonderful idea about the fecal! I used to do those at work, and I should really get the equipment to do that here. It would help with our horses and goats, too. Hmmmm Might be a sort of weird Christmas present.

I think that she had something - since she was so thin, but who knows what it could have been.

I'm just glad your others are better.

 

[threehorses]

p.s. By the way, if you use levamisole for your goats, or fenbendazole, they're usable for poultry. As is, of course, ivermectin.

(Added) Sorry I thought I hit edit.