i agree with the bad hay vs good hay part.. and im not sure it was the hay...mine were about 2 weeks old when i put hay in their brooder, feelling it would be more natural.. problems started not long after.. could have been a coincidence... one of them was emaciated before i noticed it.. could have been bullied away from food... i separated it but was too late to help it much.. when i put them out in a large, off the ground brooder with wire run, with heat light for night.. (days were in 90's).. i noticed several of them with long pieces of hay hanging from their mouth.. at this point, i noticed another one fluffed up, i caught it and it too was really skinny... i tried hand feeding it and vitamins, electolytes, sugar water, it died in 3-4 days... it had been the largest so i was shocked when I noticed it wasting away...I thought it might be impacted or something from the hay.. i treated it with olive oil, vitamins, electrolytes, sugar water, i tried everything to keep it from dying but couldnt save that one either... several days later i saw one laying down when the rest werent.. i grabbed it and brought it in, it too very skinny and fluffed up.. it died within hours. there was one more in the brooder that looked "raggedy" so i caught it and brought it in.. it still had meat on it but was sick, i noticed it right away as I had been watching them very closely. That was yesterday morning.. After spending a week searching and reading this forum, i started Corid. There was no blood in the poop, but they had all the other syptoms of cocci.... at this point, it is not as sick as the others were, but I do not expect it to live.I will be really surprised if it does.. it is standing, which the others werent, at this stage, and it has picked at food today but not much. It did poop which the others who were not treated didnt... so there is a shred of hope... the other 8 all have meat on them at this point and there are no signs of them being sick..they are also being treated with the corid which is kinda scary, since they dont look sick... this hits fast whatever it is...if it wasnt from the hay, i dont know what it could have been... they were such beautiful, healthy babies, just like the ones pictured... before I got them, I read as much as I could about raising guineas, I wanted them so bad, and wanted the best possible for them.. alot of what I read said not to give them medicated food... I feel that was the first mistake I made... I read somewhere that it was bad for them, so I didnt use it... I feel if I would have used medicated chick starter this might not have happened. The other thing I did wrong was to not clean behind the waterer... today when I ripped the outside brooder apart, I found food stuck down under the wire mesh that had gotten wet from the water fountain. The water fountain was sitting on a board so it didnt spill as much, but behind the board, against the wall, there was wet food.. i never saw it. I was so careful to make sure they were all getting enough to eat, I was putting water and food out in the run, and in the box too. so when they went in at night, apparantly they knocked over the dish and the food got lodged down behind the board. So after all I've read, I do believe they have cocci, and I believe it was from the hay or from the damp feed. (im not sure they ate any, but they might have...).. sorry for all the rambling, it has been a heartbreaking lesson... 1. feed medicated feed 2. make sure nothing is damp. It was very hot and humid when this started... hopefully the corid fixes things, Im not sure what to do if any more get sick, that would mean it is something else.
sorry for the long post, but if I can save anyone elses babies with this advice :: feed the medicated food... the first sign I had was raggedy looking feathers, like they are puffed up.
