Peafowl Poop - Normal and Abnormal - Lots of poop pictures

[Bovee]

My hen died yesterday (Thursday) afternoon.

She roosted the night before (Wednesday), had been drinking Corid in sugar water since Tuesday morning and was even pecking Thursday morning.

Her weight was normal.

The only thing that was different between finishing the extensive treatments (11/10) and the bloody stool noticed Tuesday morning was that we had fed pomegranates as a treat on Sunday.

Everybody else still looks okay but it cold here and difficult to tell who is puffed and huddled for warmth and who might be holding a sickly posture...

 

[zazouse]

My hen died yesterday (Thursday) afternoon.

She roosted the night before (Wednesday), had been drinking Corid in sugar water since Tuesday morning and was even pecking Thursday morning.

Her weight was normal.

The only thing that was different between finishing the extensive treatments (11/10) and the bloody stool noticed Tuesday morning was that we had fed pomegranates as a treat on Sunday.

Everybody else still looks okay but it cold here and difficult to tell who is puffed and huddled for warmth and who might be holding a sickly posture...

when did you worm all your birds last? why do you use sugar in their water this can be bad for birds , a booster drink down the gullet to get them going when they are down is ok but giving in water as a sole drink can be bad as they do not metabolize sugars and salts like humans do ..............sorry for your loss

 

[Bovee]

The flock was wormed with SafeGuard in water for 3 days 11/6-8 - which was a follow up to a treatment that ended 2 weeks before that (initiated in response to first bout of illness). Raw sugar was added to drinking water (2 T / gal) only when Corid was started again to encourage drinking. I had read in somewhere on BYC that, when administering meds in water, it was sometimes useful to add a little sugar to mask taste and encourage intake. When I was worming and adding Corid several weeks ago - adding a little sugar did encourage drinking by sick birds. The water was not 'flavored' in the two weeks where everyone appeared well.

 

[zazouse]

The flock was wormed with SafeGuard in water for 3 days 11/6-8 - which was a follow up to a treatment that ended 2 weeks before that (initiated in response to first bout of illness). Raw sugar was added to drinking water (2 T / gal) only when Corid was started again to encourage drinking. I had read in somewhere on BYC that, when administering meds in water, it was sometimes useful to add a little sugar to mask taste and encourage intake. When I was worming and adding Corid several weeks ago - adding a little sugar did encourage drinking by sick birds. The water was not 'flavored' in the two weeks where everyone appeared well.

Honestly i do not think corrid has a taste..CORID mimics thiamin (Vitamin B1) which is required by coccidia for normal growth and reproduction. When coccidia ingest CORID, they experience thiamin deficiency and starve from malnutrition.

sugar can increase bacterial growth , take yeast for instants you add sugar and it grows , not saying this caused a problem in your birds death but i do not believe it is necessary to get them to drink the water IMO but if your bird had a bacterial infection this could make it worse if it is the kind that feeds on sugars or starches ... Have you done a necropsy to see what was going on? or would you know what to look for?

PS worming in water is not a good way to worm IMO they do not get the full dose needed to kill worms especially if they have a heavy load, when i joined BYC i was amazed that folks were doing this and i have been trying for years to get the word out that this is WRONG if you can not do it orally i highly recommend worming in a mash

and do this for 5 days as it will cover all worms not just some, then repeat in 10 days

 

[Bovee]

I live in rural VA and there are no vets in the area that service birds other than production chicken facilities.
I would have sent this one in for testing through Extension Service but she died on Thanksgiving and they will not open again until Monday.

We had 3 pens at the beginning of this tragedy year but two were built in the woods and since this all started with Blackhead in September - and since cool, wet pens seem to be a problem, the hens have all been removed to the one large dry, sunny pen. This is all described in my initial post. The 3 cock birds are all free roaming at the moment.

My first post describes the September illness through apparent recovery in early November. When we were working in the 'sick' pen, we did net the one cock bird that never showed illness to treat him with wormer down the throat. The sick birds also got it that way because they were too weak to get away. But - the capture of the well bird was not easy and we identified a risk associated with both capture and improper dosing during a struggle. It was a risk management decision to treat flock through drinking water and poops have all been normal to occasional loose for the past 3 weeks. No one has shown signs of sickness since all the initial treatments until this hen showed bloody stool this past Monday night. Just to re-emphasize, no sugar was added to water (since 11/10) until Tuesday and she died Thursday.

The poos during blackhead were classic sulfur yellow. We were able to find Emtryl and treat. After that cleared, we had two birds start with the loose dark, bloody and green stools that seemed to line up with the Coccidiosis photos. By the first week in Nov, everyone was fine but we followed with maintenance protocols that continued meds until 11/10.

 

[casportpony]

Following up to my happy note and requesting some advice. As described in my happy report - I finished (11/10) dosing and maintenance (Emtryl and Corid) of my penned hens, 2 of 4 had been noticeably affected by an apparent combination of Blackhead followed by Coccidiosis. After 2 weeks of mostly normal poos (a few loose), this morning I found the dreaded blood again and one hen with sickly posture - drooping wings and neck tucked in shoulders. Photos below... first is morning, second is probably from last night or evening. I do NOT see sulfur color and the sickly hen was still pecking at food this morning so I am planning to start Corid treatment again - treatment dose followed by maintenance dose. Is that the correct next step? Okay to treat the entire pen of 4 via water? Should I do the Emtryl treatment again as well? It has been 3 weeks since the initial and follow-up worming triggered by illness - should I worm the pen again? I don't have a second pen to use for quarantine and the hen that is sick was not my patient zero although she was ill the longest in my initial bout with these problems. I am covering problem poos with a heavy dose of lime then straw and then forking out of pen. Thoughts?

Sorry you lost you hen... You might want to think about using a more aggressive worming program. I know many people use 3cc Safeguard per gallon and never have any issues, but I know lots of people that have lost birds to worms from worming that way. FWIW, my large hens get 2ml for five days in a row if I suspect capillary worms or gapeworms or 2ml once and repeat n ten days if I suspect roundworms or cecal worms. -Kathy

 

[Bovee]

okay - good to know.
I probably could have caught her without too much chaos on Wednesday but it didn't seem she was as bad as she apparently was.
When I wormed down the throat before, I only did 1 cc so next time will use the doses you quote here.

One more question - Should they all be getting the maintenance dose of Corid every day as normal routine?
I also have Sulmet if it is best to cycle/alternate.

Thanks

 

[casportpony]

okay - good to know.
I probably could have caught her without too much chaos on Wednesday but it didn't seem she was as bad as she apparently was.
When I wormed down the throat before, I only did 1 cc so next time will use the doses you quote here.

One more question - Should they all be getting the maintenance dose of Corid every day as normal routine?
I also have Sulmet if it is best to cycle/alternate.

Thanks

How do the others look? Are you up to doing a necropsy?

-Kathy

 

[Bovee]

I thought about it - but I wasn't sure my untrained eye would be able to figure anything out plus I'm just so sad with all the loss this fall that I guess I was avoiding one more try and fail.
I definitely would have asked our Extension Office to help me find an option for laboratory analysis but they are closed until Monday and we did not have a storage mechanism.
Everyone else in the flock has good posture and nice turd swirls so I'm hoping I don't have any more options for post mortems.
I did notice mouse dropping in their feed bin in the pen so now I'm trying to figure out how to remove that variable....

 

[casportpony]

I hear ya, had my share of losses, so sometimes it's just easier for me to bury them. With peafowl, the diseases I worry about most are coccidiosis, blackhead, E. coli and NE (necrotic enteritis), and it's had to know what to treat for when they're sick. Google blackhead and E. coli and you'll see that quite often they will have both... Same can be true for NE and coccidiosis. Birds with blackhead and E. coli usually lose weight, but not true with NE. Birds with NE can look fine one day, then dead the next.

-Kathy