Need help helping a Haitian whose chickens are dying

[The Kibble Goddess]

I am trying to help a Haitian missionary develop a Chicken Raising Program. I have a thread in Flock Management. This is part of my correspondence with her. Her chickens are dying and she doesn't know why. My questions to her are in regular type and her answers are in all caps. Does any of this ring a bell with anyone? Trying to help via email isn't easy and I dont have enough experience with chicken disease to say, "Yes, that's it!"

A worker collects chickens from various farms (!!) till he has a truck load, then he brings them to the mission. I'm thinking:
- the chickens are infected when he picks them up
- his truck is infected
- there's an environmental factor in the truck or the mission chicken house like toxic feed or materirals of which the mission is unaware.

I feel like this is a big tangled knot and I'm just reaching in and grabbing any old thread and trying to untangle it. But I have to start somewhere.

___________

The chickens that sickened and died, did they all have the same symptoms? YES!! WE DIDN'T HAVE THEM 5 DAYS BEFORE WE LOST 18 OR SO. Could you please describe the course of the disease? THEY STARTED GETTING SICK ON DAY 2. THEY SEEMED LIKE THEY DIDN'T HAVE ANY MUSCLE IN THEIR NECK. THEY HAD STUFF COMING OUT THEIR NOSE. THEY HAVE WHITE GASY/LIQUID STOOLS. When did it start? What were the symptoms? How long from onset till death? IF ONE GOT SICK THIS MORNING BY TOMORROW AFTERNOON THEY WERE DEAD. Did they stop eating? YES. What did their poop look like? WHITE AND LIQUIDY. Are chickens still dying? NOT SINCE WE GAVE MOST OF THEM AWAY. I DON'T KNOW IF THE CHICKENS WE GAVE AWAY DIED. WE TOOK THEM TO SERAPEL AND KAPAFU AND HAVEN'T BEEN OUT THERE. WE TOLD THEM WHEN WE GAVE IT TO THEM THAT THEY WERE COMING FROM AN AREA THAT THE CHICKENS WERE DYING. SO THEIR PLAN WAS TO GO AHEAD AND EAT THEM BEFORE THEY WERE SICK. SO WE LOST THEM ONE WAY OR ANOTHER - THEY ATE THEM OR THEY DIED.
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[justbugged]

I think that there could be a lot of variables at work here. The odds that the food being feed to the birds, could be contaminated is very high. I also assume that they do not have access to medicated chick feed. Or they could be being fed rotting/moldy food. After all if you have nothing what would you feed the animal that you plan on eating anyway? Also the conditions that the birds are being held in, could be less than ideal. Do they know that chicks need a fairly clean environment for the first 2 weeks or so? They are also in the tropics, so that may add to things that can go wrong. I wish there were better answers. It sounds like they need to find a mentor in Haiti that knows what they are doing when raising chickens.

 

[justbugged]

Okay I read the added post. So we are somewhere on the same page here. Do they have access to bleach?

 

[txhomegrown]

It's Voodoo, they go through a lot of chicken feet, and need a steady supply.

 

[MissJenny]

All they need is one infected chicken to contaminate the whole lot. What they need to do is collect chickens from one source. Hold them together. Collect chickens from a second source. Hold them separate from the first set. The chickens need to be quarantined from one another for 30 days. It is a slower process, but a safer one.

I do not foresee a means of collecting dozens of chickens simultaneously without contamination.

The original poster doesn't say how many chickens were collected. How long did it take the driver to collect a truck full? How old are the chickens? What are they eating? What kind of housing do they have? What is their water source?

Chickens need a clean, dry spacious area in which to live. If it's too dirty for people, it's too dirty for chickens.

Jenny

 

[spish]

if it took a few days to 'fill' the truck, would the first chickens on board be fed/watered over those days?? are they kept out in the heat without water (is haiti warm?? sorry i dont know) could be exhaustion/dehydration?
what was the truck used for prior to chicken collection? could something have been spilled in the truck that the chickens are eating?

 

[tammye]

I agree, collecting the birds from "all over" seems dangerous, one sick hen could kill the whole truck load, to bad

 

[Jferlisi]

Like everyone is saying the gathering from everywhere is bad. Also they should look at a few other things. One is what does there shelter look like, are they free ranged or kept in a run/coop? If they are free ranged they should keep an eye on them and see if they are getting into something. If they are free ranged they could be eating something poisoness, where is there feed kept? if it is left in the out to where rodents can get at it could be the they are contaminating the feed. If they have access to bleach they should bleach down the coop incase they are getting the disease from there. Plus they should hold off on getting more chickens till they can clean up the coop and food area. Is the water they are giving there chickens safe for them to drink?

 

[Jackie B.]

I would back up and start with supply chain. Begin at the source. Why do they need to collect from different sources? Availability? Time constraints? Cost? Obviously they're sick when they get them so I would sort and segregate the sources and see who's getting sick and who isn't. Sounds like a major bio security threat. Yikes.

-Jackie