Mystery illness.

[ndjili]

I lost my sweet Buff Brahma yesterday. I only had 4 chickens, all around 6 months old. Late last week I noticed my Brahma was off by herself and laying around more. I thought that maybe she was getting ready to start laying soon even though her comb hadn't started to get red. Over the weekend she started looked more puffed up and wasn't herself so I separated her from the rest, made sure to give her more vitamins and that she was always close to her food and water. Finally yesterday morning she died. I'm not sure why. She went downhill so fast that I'm not sure what illness she had. She was supposed to be vaccinated against Mereks, I did order some medicine for coccidiosis, but sadly it didn't get here in time. I'm not sure if I should treat my other birds just in case or wait to see if anyone else gets sick.

 

[Dad of the coop]

It could have been coccidiosis but, you did not indicate if she had bloody stool. Which is a tell tail sign of coccidiosis I don't think it should be fatal at such a old age and death should not happen so quickly. Another possiblilty would be new castle disease. This another common illness that is not always vaccinated for. Symptoms include depressed mood, gasping for air, lying around a lot and the bird is not just acting then selfes. You might want to look into this illness a bit more. Sadly I am not aware of any treatment. I live in CA and I can send a dead bird to UC Davis for a and evaluation and possibly a diagnosis. Maybe you can find a place near you to send your bird in for evaluation. Hope this helps and that your rest of your flock is feeling ok.

 

[ndjili]

I did not see a bloody stool, also she wasn't gasping for air or sneezing. Nothing seems to fit 100%. It came on pretty fast, she was all puffed up, slower to move around and layed around more but that's about it. Hum.

 

[Nursehev35]

I am having the same problem, only now it's with 3 hens over the past 1 1/2 months. It's like I am slowly losing 1 hen at a time to this mystery illness?!

 

[enola]

Only a few types of coccidia show blood in stools and coccidia can kill a chicken at any age. I would treat all remaining chickens for coccidia ASAP.

 

[Nursehev35]

So it started in the beginning of October. We had a hen that has had an on and off eye infection that just wouldn't go away. We took her to the vet who said it wasn't anything contagious, and gave us eye drops. She seemed like her balance was off, but we attributed it to her eye. We found her lying on the ground half of her body paralyzed and gasping for air. She died an hour later. 2 weeks ago I noticed another one of our EE, Zoey, was acting strange. She was slower than the others, and a bit clumsy. She would just come out of the coup and stand there. So we isolated her. She was eating and drinking initially, but then she could hardly get up. She stopped eating and drinking, she felt as though she had lost a lot of weight (this was before we isolated her) so I started syringe feeding her electrolytes and sulfa meds (our farmer thought coccidiosis). Within a day she couldn't stand anymore and the next day (last Sunday) she was gone. Now I have a RIR that is doing the same thing! She walks really slowly (while the others are running around) and she is off balance. Monday she came out of the coup and just laid on the cold ground, and she was shaking. So we brought her inside. She is eating heartily, and drinking. Her eyes look fine, they are bright and no redness. I looked at her poop, which is soft brown, with white... Looks normal. Her skin all looks ok. I can't see any parasites, but I'm not 100% sure what I am looking for. I know what lice and worms look like & I don't see any. Even in the crate this morning she was standing up when I went to her, but when she went for the food she looked like she got tripped up on her feet. They were all wormed about 2 weeks ago when zoey started to look sick with ivermectin. I've been giving the sulfa meds to all of them now since Sunday for 6 days.
The other thing I forgot to mention is the red did this thing yesterday where she squatted down like she was going to poop, but nothing came out. She did this twice, while I was standing there? I'm afraid we are going to lose our whole flock. We started out with 6, but we only have 3 healthy ones left.
FYI we feed them natures best organic feed pellets. We let them free range for a few hours 3-4 days a week in our fenced in, suburban back yard (1/4 acre). I clean there coup once a week. When the one in October died, I cleaned and scrubbed the coup, water & feed dishes. Water is from the hose, it's city water.

 

[enola]

I would get some Corid to treat for coccidia. I am not sure what you mean by sulfa meds. A better worm medication would be either Safeguard or Valbazen. Tractor supply would have both Corid and Safeguard.

 

[Nursehev35]

Sulmet was recommended by the farmer, where we got our chickens, and by the owner of the feed store we go to. It is an antibiotic. They recommended this one because it sounds bacterial, but since we are not 100% sure which type of infection, this one treats most kinds. It treats coryza, coccidiosis, acute fowl cholera, pullorum disease.
So you think we should use safeguard instead of ivermectin?

Many Thanks!

 

[Eggcessive]

I agree with Enola about Valbazen or SafeGuard as better wormers than Ivermectin, in which worms have built up resistance. Sulfa meds would be drugs such as Sulmet, Di-Methox, or SMZ-TMP, which treat the 2 or 3 worst strains of cocci, and other diseases. Be careful with sulfa medicines, only use them according to directions, since they can be toxic to the kidneys and cause deafness if overused. Nursehev35, I posted on your other thread, but it sounds a lot like Mareks disease. I would get a necropsy done on any other chicken that dies.

 

[enola]

The sulfas only treat a few strains of coccidia. I think Corid will treat all strains of coccidia. If your hen was lethargic, sitting around with her feathers all fluffed up and not eating, she was showing signs of coccidia.