Please Help--My Peafowl are not eating! What do I do!

[deerman]

Peafowl need to be wormed, really your chicken should be too....they will pick up worms from eating bugs and earthworms, also worms can carry blackhead and etc.

can birds live with worms....yes......but does mean they are in top health.

feeding laying pellets is ok during breeding season, yes even the males ,roosters .

 

[RedBugPoultry]

I lost my last peafowl last night. I did a home postmortem exam and found it to have a very clean liver but the cecal were very enlarged and full of a white cheesy substance with black goo mixed down the center--does any of this make since? At first I was thinking cocci because the liver was so clean but after doing several searches on the internet I am wondering if it wasn't blackhead. Is anyone familiar with what Blackhead looks like in a peafowl? I am going to try to include the pictures I took of the gruesome event and see if anyone can help identify what it is. The piece that is sitting higher on the paper towel is from the inside of the one ceca I cut. The only white showing on the liver is from the tendons I cut or were showing. The liver looked really very good but the bile was enlarged and did not look green but yellow. The gizzard was full of grass, small gravel and seeds(seeds I fed him about 2 weeks ago). The second picture is of the gizzard and not very clear--sorry, I am not going to go take another one. I would appreciate any comments on this.

 

[Frosty]

In my opinion, it sounds more like coccidiosis than blackhead. I did a quick search on line using cheesy cecal as a search, and did find one site that indicated that there have been cases of blackhead that had cecal involvement with no signs in the liver but I don't think it's that common. The pictures that they showed on that site showed an ulcerated ceca which I think you would have commented on. http://www.nwtf.org/conservation/bulletins/bulletin_25.pdf

I am really sorry for your loss, that would be devastating!

 

[RedBugPoultry]

In my opinion, it sounds more like coccidiosis than blackhead. I did a quick search on line using cheesy cecal as a search, and did find one site that indicated that there have been cases of blackhead that had cecal involvement with no signs in the liver but I don't think it's that common. The pictures that they showed on that site showed an ulcerated ceca which I think you would have commented on. http://www.nwtf.org/conservation/bulletins/bulletin_25.pdf

I am really sorry for your loss, that would be devastating!

Thank you for your response. I saw this site also--actually the only site that had any picture of the blackhead that I could find. I did read that on rare occasions the blackhead could affect the cecal and not the liver. These birds were 9 months old and I am being told cocci should not have been a problem with them. I really do not know what to think but have decided Peafowl are not in my future. If it is blackhead I just don't want to put anymore birds through it. I know blackhead can be treated but since I do not know for sure what I am treating I will stop here. I do thank everyone that tried to help.

 

[Resolution]

From what I can see ( and with no microscope) there is no parasite infestation. Renal Failure from excessive calcium in combination with insufficient fat and amino acid may have contributed to the health problems. The kidney really needed to be dissected carefully. I do hope that these two mortalities will encourage hobbyists to take a pause before worming their birds when their immune systems are down.

 

[bdfive]

Resolution, should peafowl even be fed layer pellets? I've been told by so many people they even feed them to the males. Thanks.

 

[Resolution]

Resolution, should peafowl even be fed layer pellets? I've been told by so many people they even feed them to the males. Thanks.

Of course they can. I can't think of a single farm that keeps both chickens and peafowl where the peafowl don't steal as much layer pellet as they can get their beaks on.

Juveniles and subadults -especially males, I would not use this as a maintenance diet. It appears as if the birds were maintained on layer pellet as their sole maintenance ration.
Supplements were evidently vegetable and seeds. There's no way to really know what went wrong- so many factors - and it's just a tragedy really.
I suspect that having lay pellet as the primary ration and insufficient supplementation around that may have been problematic- and aspergillosis came on rather rapidly- a secondary infection that came in after systematic renal infection. But again- I haven't seen the birds or the set up they were maintained in. This is however, according to all data, the most vulnerable life stage of peafowl. They are vulnerable because this is the age that they require complete amino acids- and at specific rates- specific vitamins and micro nutrients.

The experts will wave off over-thinking these things because with decades of experience they've learned that peafowl are easy enough to raise- provided you know what you are doing. They're generally not around after the bird dies.

I do hope that every death of a young peafowl is being recorded in the notes of serious peafowl hobbyists- and really any fowl.

There is a real need to help birds boost their immune systems - and food is medicine. Wormers are pesticides and should never be administered to birds unless they are in the best possible condition. That's a bit of a catch 22. People feel the need for a panacea and it would appear from this forum( and others) that wormers serve as that cure all.
However, parasite load is not a given. Do you cure a small parasite load with enough to make the birds sick - or just enough?
Sometimes I've failed to take worming as seriously as I should - I'll forget all about it and every once in a while and a bird will falter. That's about the time the horse wormer paste is made ready. The birds go into a large dogcrate -

Having a careful look at their droppings meanwhile- under the microscope comes next.

The bird is then put on a special diet that is rich in fatty acids -krill oil specifically- gel caps tucked down the gullet at the first sign of distress- cranberry gel caps the same- and a special custard -72 hours at the minimum -afflicted birds- afflicted with anything- are held in a large dog crate and fed this special custard. Their water will have electrolytes mixed and may include a bit of unsweetened cherry concentrate.

Wormers are administered only when I know what I'm treating for (generally- there have been times when I'm at a complete loss what to do- call a friend with the same stock and they remind me to horse paste them and there I'm at it.) But it doesn't end there. After worming the birds should be kept off of certain foods. That special custard is all that should be fed for a week after worming.

Back from the Brink Custard:

Canned Pumpkin
Canned Sweet Potato
Cooked Rice OR Cooked Bulgar OR Cooked Oatmeal
Peanut Butter
Turmeric Powder
Cardamom Pods
Walnut Flour
one tin of canned Tuna
frozen or canned berries


mix accordingly- there is no wrong way- just try and get all the ingredients and make sure that cooked rice/bulgar/ oatmeal- this is at least 50% of the recipe.
The custard should be firm enough to pick at with a fork- not a gooey dough.


The birds need to be fed twice a day- old soft bananas fed out every evening.

 

[bdfive]

Going to have to print your last posting Resolution. Thanks. I never dreamed caring for peafowl could be so involved. Can you please explain how you worm with horse paste and what exactly you purchase? I've never had a problem with worming but have thought it would be best to have samples tested to see if they even need it. My vet charges $16 which is well worth it but wonder what would happen if they made a mistake. Would love to find instructions on internet of testing poo for worms.....would need to know what kind of microscope to get too. I think most people that get peafowl want it to be easy. Maybe I'm understanding why so many die....they have dietary and medical needs just like humans. I've not lost any to ill health but I see to it they get lots of healthy veggies/fruit. They all love bread so I purchase some special for them with good grains and lots of seeds. Early yesterday they had cauliflower chopped in my Vitamix 5200 and in the evening I took a banana out and fed pieces to each from my hand. I liked to fell over when the new 100% Green peahen came up and grabbed a piece then came back. I was elated. She was so wild a few weeks ago when I got her. Today they'll get chopped collard greens. Another task I preform a couple times a day is scrape the poo onto a dustpan with a paint scrapper especially from under the 80 feet of roosts we have in the 4 pens, each 10 to 12 feet wide, 30 feet deep and 9 feet high ..... includes 10 foot of shed on the end. It's pretty nice and cost us more to build then what we paid for our first house decades ago. We keep improving the enclosure.....my husband now refers to it as Peacock Hilton, LOL!!!! Might add we've cut down and mulched hundreds of Hill Country Mountain Cedar that is used in the pens on the ground. I mix it with Live Oak tree leaves and sand. I think the cedar helps with insect infestations but since I've read cedar isn't good for animals I let the oils in it dry out some before using it and don't use too much. I was using Diatomaceous Earth but it is so expensive and it takes so much to cover such a large area. I've heard use lime but don't know anything about that. Need to research it.

Any input is always very much appreciated.

 

[Resolution]

Taking care of peafowl needn't be so involved - that post is intended for the person with a sick bird that doesn't know what to do about it. I think most people love their birds so much they could feed them newspaper and house them in a basement and they'd thrive.

I do think that there is a tendency for people to be a bit too eager to medicate without knowing what's actually wrong with the birds.
Moreover, the immune function of the birds is rarely what it could be by just being mindful of the seasons- the weeks and months of the year- think about what is going on in the substrate in your poultry yard- think about the different requirements that different developmental phases may require.


http://www.vetslides.com/precisionslides.html

http://www.microscope-microscope.org/applications/animals/fecal_analysis.htm

1. Virus Infections of the Gastrointestinal Tract of Poultry
   
   ps.fass.org/content/77/8/1166.full.pdf

write to
AllenWMiller

(on this forum) for more information on precisely what microscope to get and what references to use.

 

[deerman]

i worm birds three time a year. NEVER had a problem with it harming any birds. Some of my birds lived over 20 years. Most peafowl breeders worm their birds from 2 to 4 times a year. Check the breeders web's sites.


the first thing i find with people post,about sick birds, they have never been wormed ,or if so they used Wazine. Reason you will find thats why they are told to worm first thing.

Most ALL birds will pick up worms, from what they eat.