My peacock died today :-(

[Dame Edna]

I've only delved into peafowls only four 4-5 months ago.

I purchased our peacock when he was about 8-9 months old in August. He was free range at the previous property. I've kept him housed in a large pen with our chooks, until I was ready to let all the pen fowl out (giving them ample time to bond with the land). We also got him 2 peahen girl friends about 4 months ago.

I first notice last Tuesday that he wasn't as bright as he normally is. With every other time one of my chooks have been sick I've administered homeopathics with 100% bounce back to good health, so I gave him some last week, which I thought may have made a difference, but I didn't keep up with it as catching him stresses him out so much.

So on the weekend I went to the local produce store and asked about worming him. I needed to know how much he weighed and I don't have any scales, to do so. So I didn't know what to do. He looked really miserable today so I rang the vet and ask his advice, over the phone, and said I didn't know how much he weighed. He said just google the average peacock weight and go with that. Being a young peacock, he doesn't have a big lovely tail so I went with the lowest weight which was 4kg.

When we bought him, the previous owner worm him while she had him in his arms, so I thought, the worming medication maybe worn off so that's why I thought maybe he had worms?

So I went and bought some worming tablets. the lady who helped me said 'if he is really infested, the worming tablets may kill him' which doesn't make sense to me - if he's infested, he's going to die and if I give him some medication he'll die??

Anyway I administered 'Avitrol Plus' with Levamisole Hydrochloride and Praziquantel. As I realised him he stood up, and did a really bloody poo. Immediately removed him from this pen and took him to our other pen as I realised how sick he was now :-( I really wanted to move all my other fowl from this pen to the other pen, but time was restricted and the pen hens would be so difficult to catch in the other pen.

I noticed he was dropping a lot of feathers too.

Can anyone help with a diagnosis with what he may have had and what I should do with my other fowl?

:-( he was so pretty

 

[chooks4life]

Sorry to hear of your loss.

Quote: Worming chemicals are harmful, that's why she said that.

They say "safe" but all that means is that it won't kill every animal outright. When the animal is already debilitated, giving them "chemotherapy" is like kicking them when they're down, to use a crude analogy.

It's not beneficial medication like most herbs, it's chemical medication which operates on the basis of "it'll kill everything smaller than the animal if we give it in a lower dose than what kills the animal".

I don't have any decent suggestions for what killed him though, it could be so many things. Quite possibly a strain of coccidiosis which he was never exposed to but which your poultry or the soil at your place are infested with. For all we know he could have eaten something toxic like a source of heavy metals, that can cause wasting, illness, bloody poo, loss of feathers, and death.

Your best bet to avoid this happening again is always education, education, education. You can't spot the threat you don't know exists. If possible, when in doubt about a mystery death, autopsy or get someone to do it for you.

Best wishes.

 

[casportpony]

So sorry for you loss... What killed him was probably blackhead, capillary worms or coccidiosis, not the wormer!

Treatment for blackhead is no less than 30mg/kg metronidazole by mouth once a day for 5 days and worming with a wormer like Safeguard, Valbazen or something that kills cecal worms..

If you have other peafowl, I would weigh all of them and de-worm all of them, ASAP. If any other peafowl look "off", start them on metronidazole.

-Kathy

 

[featherhead]

Agree with casportpony. The only way to know definitively what killed your bird is to either have an autopsy or a fecal analysis done by a vet. The bloody poo seems to indicate some intestinal parasite. Coccidia is not killed by wormers; a coccidiostat is requited to kill coccidia. Coccidia lives in the soil everywhere in the world. I'm so sorry you lost your bird. As a precaution, I treat my birds for coccidia twice per year. I still do routine fecals on all my birds, just to be safe. Corid doesn't kill the coccidia, it simply prevents them from multiplying for a while. Only sulfa drugs will kill it, and they have a small margin for error. This is why you must know your bird's weight. Too much medication will kill your bird; too little is a waste. Again, I'm so sorry.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

Coccidia can be killed by spraying a 10% ammonia solution on the ground and on all materials inside the pens. If your pens are vacant you can increase the strength to a 25% solution.Granted you will never get rid of the coccidia because it lives inside the gut of every animal,,treating it will only stop it from increasing in numbers inside the animal.But since you witnessed the pea pooping blood on the ground,I'd vacate the pen and spray it and leave it empty for awhile,then rotate birds and keep up the spraying regime until all pens has been sprayed. This will at least cut down on the numbers of these 1 celled organisms that can live for 2 years otherwise.

 

[kuntrygirl]

I am so sorry to hear about your loss.

 

[zazouse]

I have lost a few, it is such a hard thing to have happen

 

[zazouse]

 

[Dame Edna]

Thank you all for your replies - it is much appreciated. I wonder as he was free range when we bought him and then had been penned for the months we had him, he may not have been used to being exposed to such concentrate levels of Coccidia in the soil? If he was free range he would have ample room to move around?

Once a peafowl or chicken has Coccidia, is it treatable, or is it a fatal disease?

Cheers, Mary

 

[casportpony]

Thank you all for your replies - it is much appreciated. I wonder as he was free range when we bought him and then had been penned for the months we had him, he may not have been used to being exposed to such concentrate levels of Coccidia in the soil? If he was free range he would have ample room to move around?

Once a peafowl or chicken has Coccidia, is it treatable, or is it a fatal disease?

Cheers, Mary

Blackhead, coccidiosis and worms can be treated if caught soon enough, but are usually fatal if left too long. Your peacock was not a chick, so I honestly think it was blackhead or capillary worms, not coccidiosis. Remember that all three can have the same symptoms. All three can produce bloody poop and both blackhead and coccidiosis can produce yellow poop. It's even possible to have all three at once.

You should read this:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/804570/coping-with-blackhead

Blackhead
Metronidazole, sold as Flagyl, Fish-Zole, Meditrich or API General Cure(check box to verify ingredients include 250mg metronidazole) is what's needed to treat blackhead in the early stages. Once it has advanced, an antibiotic like Baytril or Clavamox is also needed for the secondary e. Coli infection they they will probably get. They will also need to be wormed with a wormer that's effective against the cecal worm, I use Safeguard or Panacur, liquid or paste (both are 10% fenbendazole) at 50mg/kg (.5ml per 2.2 pounds) by mouth and repeat in ten days.

Capillary Worms
Effective worming of the capillary worm with Safguard or Panacur requires dosing 3-5 days in a row with some amount... Still trying to find a documented study on that. In the meantime I use 50mg/kg for five days.

Coccidiosis
Chickens get 9 or more different strains of coccidia, turkeys get 7 different ones and peafowl get something different from them, but I don't know how many that is. The treatment that most in North America use is amprolium, which is sold as Corid or Amprol and comes in a liquid or powder. I think it's called Amprolium 200 in Australia, but don't quote me on that. Some strains can also be treated with Sulfa drugs like Di-Methox or Sulmet.

Metronidazole








Fenbendazole







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Amprolium

Sulfa Drugs



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-Kathy

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