Omphalitis/Yolk Sac Infection

[Hannah15]

I am having persistent problems with omphalitis and I am at a loss as to how to stop it. I have searched and searched, but all of the articles that I have seen have the exact same basic information, all of which I already know. Last fall I was attempting to hatch chicks from my own eggs. After a couple of very poor hatch rates and losing the few chicks that did hatch within a couple of days of hatching, I sent one off for a necropsy. It came back as omphalitis, from e. Coli. I had the adult birds tested, and they also tested positive, so they were treated with the appropriate anitbiotic for that strain. I continued to have problems with the chicks. I found that if the chicks that actually made it to hatch were treated with antibiotics immediately, I was able to save them. This, of course, had side effects, so it is not ideal.

After that I stopped incubating for the winter. I have recently begun again, with eggs from another source. They are from the same breeder that most of my adults are from. The eggs are clean. (They were last fall too, I even tried sanitizing them with the exact same results.) My incubator is always cleaned (first with Dawn, then rinsed and sanitized with Tek-Trol following the directions on the package). Every time I start losing a few chicks around day 10, and it continues until about day 14, then stops until about day 18-20, at which point many more chicks die. After hatch I begin to lose chicks after a few days. I try to apply Bacitracin to navels as soon as the chicks hatch, which seems to help some. This has continued this spring with the chicks from another breeder. I'm positive the losses are caused by omphalitis again, because they follow the exact same pattern, and upon removing a dead fully formed chick from its egg, I discovered that its yolk sac was BRIGHT green. The chicks are clearly being exposed while they are still in the eggs.

I don't know what else I can do, or why I continue to have these problems. Everything is immaculate. Does anyone have any information that is not already included in the articles?

 

[Chrischick]

I just had two die within hours after hatching. They eggs were from my own flock and were gathered on the day before I set them. I had disinfected everything, the eggs were clean and I've had several successful, healthy hatches prior to this one. I noticed when I candled the eggs prior to setting them that a couple of the eggs were very porous. It's spring and the hens are just getting back into their groove of laying well. I probably shouldn't have set those eggs when I saw how porous they were.

Anyway, on day 18, I had pips. I didn't expect that! I quickly took out the egg turner and filled the humidity chamber and put the eggs on lockdown. The first chick hatched healthy and strong. The second chick was pipped at the wrong end of the egg. It hatched after being pipped for several hours and she made it out of the shell but within hours was dead. When I removed her from the incubator, I saw the cardinal sign of "Mushy Chick Disease", the swollen bloated, purplish abdomen and slightly open belly button. The next day, another chick, also pipped upside down in the egg and seemed fine at first but within hours was dead. Exact same scenario. Mushy abdomen and open navel. Nothing protruded, there was no smell, but it was obvious that the absorbed yolk was probably infected. There was no blood on the chick or in the incubator on the flooring.

I didn't do anything different than I do on other hatches. Brinsea Mini Advanced incubator set at 99.5. Humidity was kept at the recommendation of the manufacturer by keeping one side of the water chamber full until day three and then filling both chambers before lock down. The only thing I didn't do, was take the entire incubator apart (unscrewing all the screws) and cleaning it that way. The other thing I didn't do that I've done before was to slightly prop the big end of the egg up against the water chamber so that it was slightly higher than the other end.

My concern is that these chicks hatched early. I think the turner being on until day three may have caused the upside pip and I think not completely disassembling my incubator and cleaning every crack and crevice probably led to the omphalitis. This was my last hatch, so I'm going to tear that thing apart, clean it thoroughly this time and let it run a day with no water to dry it out completely. I think I might need to lower my temp a bit, although 99.5 should be ideal, because of the early hatching. I'm not going to set porous eggs again either! Lessons learned. Any other advice is welcome. I understand the original poster's frustration!

 

[casportpony]

I lost a couple last year to yolk sac infections, so this year I'm trying an experiment... So far I've had a couple that were looking like they had infections or were going to have them, so I tried giving them Baytril, and so far so good. One was having trouble pipping, so I pipped for it, but it hadn't absorbed it's yolk, so I left it sitting the bottom of it's shell until it was mostly absorbed, but by this time it was starting to smell. The other is one that hatched on it's own, but hadn't absorbed it's yolk, then proceeded to break the yolk, spewing yolk and blood all over the bator.

Both received Baytril at 10mg/kg twice a day for about 4 days and they were tube fed fluids until they passed their first poops, then they were tube fed Kaytee Baby Bird Food until they were eating on their own.

-Kathy

 

[Hannah15]

I'm sorry that I have not responded before now. I really think this could be a valuable conversation, I suspect that a certain percent of the late term deaths that people tend to attribute to "humiditiy issues" may actually be yolk sac infections. The symptoms listed here sound very similar in many cases.

I changed a couple of things during my last incubation attempt, but unfortunately, I don't know that I am any closer to understanding what could be causing the problem.

To list it out:
This spring I have had 4 hatches, all shipped.
1st: 16 eggs, all showed development, 13 made it to "lockdown", 1 didn't pip, 2 died after hatch. No meds were given, the other 10 are still doing very well.

2nd: 16 eggs, 10-ish showed development, I believe 5-6 made it to "lockdown", 2 hatched and died within 1 week. They did receive meds, but it was after they were already quite sick.

3rd: 25 eggs, most showed development (but I don't remember exact numbers), I believe 15 made it to "lockdown", 8 hatched and 1 hatched with help. The chick that was helped had severe leg issues, and died a few days later. These chicks all received medicated water, and the 8 that hatched without assistance are still doing great.

4th: This one I am still working on. There were 50 eggs, 46 showed development, 37 went into "lockdown" with 4 from my own eggs that were started by a broody. So far 22 have hatched (+/- 1, they are hard to count!), and 3 are still working on it, though I am not real sure about one of those as it did not pip externally on its own. The other 12-ish died during the last 2 days. Of the 4 from my own, 1 died after internally pipping. 1 is very slow, but has pipped both internally and externally on its own. The other 2 seem good. Of the chicks that died after "lockdown" about half were internally pipped before death. These chicks will be medicated as well. I have found that if I wait until they look sick, it is too late. I have been using neomycin and tetracycline. This is based on the antibiotic sensitivity test on my adult bird from last fall.

I changed things for the 4th hatch. I moved the incubators to a different room, thinking that the air in the previous room may have been "infected" with the bacteria. I wouldn't say it has done much. I still lost quite a few in the late stages. It isn't that this has always been a "bad" hatch rate for shipped eggs (though the hatch rate for my own last fall was abysmal), but the number that die late is higher than it should be. I also added a small amount of bleach to the water for the humidity in the incubator. However that was part way through the incubation, and I did not add any to the incubator being used for the 4th hatch because it is now in a bathroom, and I figured the humidity was high enough without water until they started hatching (I have another small hatch next week that has had the bleach water all along). I did add pennies to the incubator water (the one time I did add it) following some advice I saw on here. I don't think that did anything.

The group hatching next week (assuming that they do) has had bleach in the water and were incubated in the Rcom. I also have a few of my own, as well as a few from the same source as the eggs in the Rcom under a broody. We'll see how they do.

After this hatch I am going to take as much of this incubator (Brinsea Eco 20) apart as possible, and use q tips to clean it. I have no idea if this may destroy the electronics, (of course I will try not to), but I don't know what else to do. Incubator manufacturers really need to consider the fact that these things need to be sanitized. If there are areas that are extremely small and directly linked to electronics, they cannot be completely sanitized. Someone needs to design an incubator that is completely waterproof in any area the chicks are exposed to.