New guy ole questions

[wv chicken guy]

Hello to all just thought I say hello.I found this site looking for info on my chickens. i think some of my older hens are a little ill. I lost one last night and found another one ill today... their symptoms are: diarrhea,maybe a little blood around the butt. I'm not sure,but, there are either worms or maggots around the anus. I went to tractor supply and the guy who knows most about chickens there gave us duramycin -10. Tetracycline hydrochloride soluble powder. He told me to make their sole water supply the waterer in the coop for next three days and then start them on wazine -17 ( its a dewormer) does this sound right? also he told us not to use eggs for two weeks after we stop the worming treatment. I've been reading on here and i see issues with the crop?! Sorry, but can anyone tell me what that is? I don't know chicken anatomy :-( but is that the name for the egg sac? That's where the issues are in my chickens. Please help!

 

[foreverlearning]

The duramycin -10 is for respiratory problems, the wazine is a dewormer that only works on one type of worm. It sounds like he was just covering his basis with what he told you to buy. I would continue with the duramycin because it works well on many problems. How are you not sure on the worms/maggots? Are they too small to tell? If so, get poultry dust. Heck, I would treat with poultry dust (about $7 at TSC) just in case it is louse. Also, you want to give them a warm bath and blow dry on low to dry them. With any infection or problem a bath helps if nothing else to clear the area to see better and make them feel a little bit better. If you are looking at de-wormer I would suggest Valbazen. Do you have a vet in your area? If you do, most do fecal floats for $10-20, that would tell you if they had worms. How old are they? It matters for some problems.

 

[Kelsie2290]

Are you seeing the worms or maggots actually on the live chickens or only on the dead ones, or in their droppings? What do they look like? If the chickens have maggots that is a very different problem than if they have worms of some sort. Wazine is used for roundworms, there are a bunch of other kinds, valbazen is usually the wormer recommended as the best all around wormer for chickens. if the chickens have a heavy worm load they usually do recommend starting with wazine so as not to kill off so many worms at once that it makes the chicken sicker. Round worms are long skinny worms, kind of like short pieces of spaghetti, tapeworms look like rice. Maggots would probably be infecting a wound, or maybe in the vent or near there if they are living in or around poop that has collected in the feathers.
Here is a link with good pictures of chicken anatomy. The crop is the mass on the right front of the bird that you can see gets bigger when a chicken eats, it is where the food goes when the chicken eats, before it hits the stomach. I am not sure what you mean by egg sack?
http://www2.ca.uky.edu/poultryprofi.../Chapter3_Anatomy_and_Physiology/Chapter3.pdf

 

[Eggcessive]

Make sure there is no blood in their poop. Blood in the poop usually means coccidiosis (blood doesn't always have to be present.) Corid in the cattle section of meds is what treats that. If they have maggots on their vents, they could have peck injuries or a vent prolapse where part of the insides comes out from too big an egg. If there is any red tissue sticking out it must be pushed back in gently with lubricant, honey, or Preparation H. Maggots on the outside can travel up inside and kill the chicken. Putting her in a warm soapy pan of water will cause the maggots to come out and you need to get them all off. If she is placed back outside with a raw rear end she may get more flies on her laying more eggs. There is a horse ointment that is used to keep off flies.

 

[wv chicken guy]

The chickens are riir about four years ole and no blood and what I saw around the vent I think was worms but I'm still going to give a warm bath

 

[wv chicken guy]

We put her down last night... Was active very lethargic, went to give her a bath and her rear end had a something hard blocking the vent ( I had neighbors look at it and they said it was a mass not a egg) so we made the decision to go ahead and do it. I have heard chickens can't feel pain.. But it broke my heart thinking about that possibility. I don't want the younger hens to get whatever this is. Should we be thinking about culling them all? Or am I just being sad ( this is WVa chicken guys wife btw... I love these hens like children...

 

[foreverlearning]

I am sorry about your loss. Do you have a picture of it? Or if you can find one similar on here we could help. There are very few things that would require you to cull an entire flock if you are willing to have a closed flock. It sounds like a blockage of some sort, and if it was a blockage or a tumor that would account for maggots as they only eat dead flesh. I wouldn't cull the flock, just my thoughts. If you can't get a picture can you describe the mass? We may still be able to figure this out and treat the rest if needed.

 

[Kelsie2290]

Sorry that you lost the hen. You said you have lost two recently, but they did not have the same symptoms did they? Are you able to get pictures of what was wrong with the hen? What you are describing really doesn't sound like a disease that would require you to cull the whole flock. Hens bred for production are fairly prone to reproductive problems, and at four years old your RIR are on the old side for laying hens, most hatchery type birds are bred to produce really well for two or so years and then be replaced.

 

[wv chicken guy]

Thank you all for your replies. It seems that the duramycin seems to have helped the older chickens are perking up I think we are going to go ahead and do the worming and then do the dusting. My older chickens haven't laid for a year or so my younger ones are still laying just fine I plan on not using any eggs for at least two weeks more like three does that sound right? And again thank you all