Quote:
I'm da*n sure not an expert, I just have dying birds
But the L & S in "L-S 50" stands for lincomycin-spectinomycin-so you're right-that's what they use and that's what mine are on now. It's powder I'm mixing in the water. The other Cochin babies (14 wks now) still look and act so good and the Silkies (16 wks) are all acting good. My little Cochin pullet I've had to the vet 3 times probably won't make it another 12 hrs, same with my daughter's pet cockeral. I've wracked my brain trying to figure out the best way to deal with this. I've got big round pans with bleach and water that I step in before I go into each chicken's area. The Cochin babies are completely isolated in their pen but they always have been. I'm raking up every speck of poop in their pen all the time and am going to continually spray down with Oxine in there, their coop, change shavings in their coop every day if I have to. He said to be prepared because I was going to lose more. But I'm hoping he's wrong.
What makes me just sick is the Cochin pen really is isolated and the most protected one. *I* brought this crap into their pen on my shoes. That's hard to swallow.
Could you please describe their droppings in detail? Color and consistancey? That is often the best indication of what is wrong.
Also if you would smell the breath of the birds that are sick. I mean it shouldn't be minty fresh but if it smells rotten then they could have sour crop and a bacterial thing going on. If it smells like something died inside of them then they could have Coryza.
I'm not sure either if Carl mentioned this but always take care of the youngest birds first and then progress to the older ones by age. Never take care of mature birds and then move to younger ones.
Another thing is that you will never catch an illness in a chicken early. To keep flock status they are expert at hiding an illness. Don't blame yourself for this as it could have been a single dropping from a wild bird that started this.
Most research has been done on chicken illness for the commercial grower where it is more cost effective to cull an entire barn and start over. That is why there are few meds that have been cleared for chickens, the research just hasn't been done.