My chickens are dying from a strange disease

[gregorhanslik]

Hello everyone,

We desperately need some advice as I’ve lost three chickens to a disease that we don’t understand.

We’re a bit stumped as to what’s going on and hope by some chance you could help with any thoughts or suggestions.

All of our chickens are silkies and have a big yard to play in. We feed them normal layer pellets and occasional treats. Plenty of access to water, no rats or vermin that we are aware of.

when these girls became sick and died, vets have given us fairly vague answers like ‘neurological problems’ or ‘a virus’ and that’s about it.

We know pretty well for certain it’s not Marrick’s Disease as we had a post-mortem done on one of them.

Anyway, they’ve all had similar but slightly different symptoms:

• Barbara had been doing very runny poos for a long time and not laying. Suddenly one day she became very docile and drowsy and over the course of the day lost most of her physical coordination and almost looked asleep. We put her to bed and she died overnight.
• Margo began showing coordination problems and over the course of a month things just got worse and worse - until she could barely stay upright. No other symptoms. We decided the best thing was to have her put down.
• Gertrude spent a few weeks sleeping a lot - she would simply turn her head around and bury it in her feathers. She seemed to be relatively okay, and then slowly lost coordination over the course of a week, became very docile, etc. Her eyesight seemed to be badly affected as well; she could see, but couldn’t coordinate her vision enough to grab food. She seemed to get better for a few days (the vet gave her anti-inflammatories and antibiotics) and she was eating and drinking well. Then over the course of about two days she got rapidly worse and we put her to bed and she died overnight.
  
• A fourth chicken, Esmerelda, has begun showing similar symptoms - namely, loss of coordination in her limbs. We’re fearing the worst.

As you can see, some of the symptoms are similar but not entirely consistent, and the timeframes are different as well. The first died over 18 months ago, the second a year ago, the third a month ago. The ages have varied a bit but none of them were much older than two or three.

We’d be very grateful for any advice you might have. We’re starting to wonder if it’s environmental, or something we’re doing, or not doing (many of our friends have chickens and say it’s pretty unusual).

If there is something we can do, we’d love to try it, as we still have two very healthy and happy chickens and would hate to lose any more.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Shadrach]

What did the necropsy find? There should be a report.
Have you had a fecal float done by a lab? You need to collect two types of poop, cecal and normal.
What exactly is the composition of the feed you give them? The composition should be on the bag.
Do you give them treats and if so what do you give them and what quantity?

Are you prepared to locate an avian vet and take one of your chickens to them.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

So losses were 6 months to a year apart? That is not entirely out of the norm.
Did someone cut the bird open or did you actually send it to a poultry diagnostic lab?
I just sent a bird to our state lab yesterday.

What country/state are you in?

 

[gregorhanslik]

Hello everyone,

We lost another one recently so we sent her off for a full post-mortem. She had an enlarged kidney and enlarged spleen so they did a further check and found Marek's Disease. Quite upsetting but at least we have an answer! The two remaining chickens likely have it so we're stuck with what we have, sadly.

 

[glassdragonfly]

So sorry!