One dead, one sick

[WildTurkeyDoctors]

This is my first flock. I had 8 pullets and one cockerel until one of the pullets (could have been a cockerel) died yesterday of an unknown illness. She was the only Polish of the bunch. The only other ornamental chick is the bantam cockerel. The Polish chick has always appeared to be the most fragile and was hen pecked by the Easter Egger early on, but that seemed to have mostly resolved since moving into their bigger coop and pen last week. I have never noticed any blood in poop. The dead chick did appear to sneeze every now and then, but that seemed to have resolved as well. However, she was increasingly aloof over the past few days and today I noticed another chick, barred rock, being less energetic and more aloof. Tonight she didn’t get up on the roosts with her friends. I will quarantine her. All the other chicks are happy and active as ever. However, any idea what’s going on? I gave Corid today just in case, but I already did that two weeks ago for five days when the Polish chick seemed to be under the weather at that time (sneeze, puffy eye). I regret not keeping her separated from the flock this whole time. Now I have reason to believe this could be something contagious. The supposed sick chick is eating and drinking and walking, just not as energetically. She has fluffy feathers and a little mohoak, puffy ear muffs and a beard, so it’s hard to tell if her feathers are fluffed up bc she just generally looks fluffy. She looks to be a decent size but could be the feathers. I treated five days of Corid starting two weeks ago and started again today. I started them on a new bag of medicated starter feed a few days ago. Before that they weren’t on medicated feed, but I had been putting a cap full per gallon of brown medication stuff in their water for the past week. Any advice?

Thanks!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

What dosage of Corid are you giving?

I'm sorry you lost one, with a puffy eye and sneezing, it may have been respiratory disease. Without testing, it's hard to know which one.

Personally, I would not give the Elixer. Some birds will not drink well with supplements added to the water. Could be a simple problem of dehydration because they don't like the taste too.

 

[WildTurkeyDoctors]

What dosage of Corid are you giving?

I'm sorry you lost one, with a puffy eye and sneezing, it may have been respiratory disease. Without testing, it's hard to know which one.

Personally, I would not give the Elixer. Some birds will not drink well with supplements added to the water. Could be a simple problem of dehydration because they don't like the taste too.

I did 1 tsp per gallon for five days and a fresh batch everyday. I will nix the elixir. They are drinking but I sense they don’t like it as much bc if I give regular water on the smaller water container, they prefer that one. Thanks for the tip. If this sick chick dies, I’ll see about doing the necropsy.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Corid powder dosage is 1.5 teaspoon per gallon of water and Corid liquid dosage is 2 teaspoons per gallon of water. Give for 5-7 days.

LOL They are telling you that the Elixer doesn't taste good. I would also be hesitant to give it to chicks since it contains the Calcium. What you feed should have sufficient Calcium for growing chicks.

 

[WildTurkeyDoctors]

What dosage of Corid are you giving?

I'm sorry you lost one, with a puffy eye and sneezing, it may have been respiratory disease. Without testing, it's hard to know which one.

Personally, I would not give the Elixer. Some birds will not drink well with supplements added to the water. Could be a simple problem of dehydration because they don't like the taste too.

Update: the six 8 wk old barred rock was dying so I culled her and mailed her corpse to the state vet school lab overnight and got the report back already. It was $50, $5 for the igloo, $15 to overnight at FedEx. Vet’s assessment was she had microplasmosis likely introduced a few weeks ago by the same age pullets I traded out two cockerels for from the original seller. Then got a secondary infection from E. coli or such and was dying due to the secondary respiratory infection. The other seven are doing fine and he thinks while they’ve been exposed, will probably be fine, but carriers for the rest of their lives. So, worth it for me to have some insight into what happened. No evidence of coccidiosis so stopped the Corid.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Glad you were able to find out the cause. Thank you for the update.