My girls are dying off.....:0(

[Jolyn]

Hello all......I haven't been here in ages but am hoping i can get some thoughts on this.....


So in the last two months i have lost a turkey and three chickens. The turkey was young......My girls are about 3 years old.....laying fine.....fat and pretty.....However three have died out of the blue.

In the morning they seem fine.....and when i go out the next day they are not alive. No predators are getting them.

They have no symptoms that i have seen. No cold like symptoms......or not eating or drinking.....

Any idea?

I though with the turkey that one of my goats butted him......I've seen them try to get them.


I did have my turkeys with my chickens in a pen for awhile and though perhaps it was blackhead.....but my other two turkeys are fine and i read that usually chickens don't die from it they just are carriers.

Help!!

 

[dawg53]

Quote:
It very well could be blackhead. Blackhead is deadly to turkey's. The cecal worm in chickens is the host to the protozoa that causes histomoniasis. This is why chickens and turkey's should be seperated. If you suspect blackhead, you need to treat your birds with metronidazole which can be bought as fishzole. Dosage is one 250mg pill a day for 5 days. The metronidazole will take care of the protozoa. Then you want to kill the kill the cecal worm host. Since you have goats, perhaps you have Safeguard liquid goat wormer (fenbendazole.) You can dose your chickens with it. Dosage is given orally, use a syringe without a needle. Give 1cc for giants, 3/4cc for large fowl, 1/2cc for standard size, 1/4cc for smaller chickens. You'll need to redose your chickens in 10 days to kill larva hatched from eggs since the initial wormer. There is a grand total of 24 days egg withdrawal.
You can also use valbazen (albendazole) liquid cattle/sheep wormer. Dosage is given orally, 1/2cc for standards and 1/4cc for smaller chickens. Redose again in 10 days. There's 24 day withdrawal as well.
Additionally, if it's not blackhead...they could be dieing because of worms if you never wormed them. Safeguard and/or valbazen will kill the worms that may be infecting your flock.