Poultry hollow hatchery

[farm-gal91]

I want to start off saying I have had great customer service with these people. My only complaint is sick chickens. All of the seabrights I had delivered were sneezing(they are cured now thanks to a course of antibiotics) . The Ameraucana chicks (16 weeks old) seemed ok at first but then one mysteriously fell over dead. Now, another is acting strange and sickly. This is not mareks. Has anyone else had issues with sickly chickens from them? Any other issues?

 

[RhodeRunner]

Have you contacted the breeder, to see if they will rectify the situation? It sounds like you have been sold sick chickens. Please bear in mind that antibiotics often fix respiratory diseases (chickens do not get colds) temporarily, so your birds can relapse at any time. As for the other sickness, who knows what that is?

There has been three posts this week, about this hatchery.


https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...-hollow-hatchery-chick-growth-chart-pic-heavy

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/362103/poultry-hollow-brush-creek-tn

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/655357/do-you-have-chickens-from-poultry-hollow-hatchery-in-tn

 

[farm-gal91]

Yes, thank you I am very familiar with CRD in chickens as they are usually viral and treatable with strong course of antibiotics and if they are not cured it is a Protozoa in them, I am a veterinary technician so I see it all the time
We have performed every test and nothing comes back abnormal, the breeder will not help. They will not acknowledge that the chickens were sick when I got them even though I have vet records to prove so.

 

[farm-gal91]

In the meantime I will check out these post. Thanks so much!

 

[Shangrila Farm]

Yes, thank you I am very familiar with CRD in chickens as they are usually viral and treatable with strong course of antibiotics and if they are not cured it is a Protozoa in them, I am a veterinary technician so I see it all the time

We have performed every test and nothing comes back abnormal, the breeder will not help. They will not acknowledge that the chickens were sick when I got them even though I have vet records to prove so.

How can you be sure they did not fall ill during shipment? I do not like shipping poultry, esp young birds, they do not seem to fare well. I had a peacock I spent $150 on arrive sneezing, the other 2 hens were fine. The male dropped dead 2 weeks later despite vet care and he found nothing wrong with the bird that would of killed it. (This was last week too)

I was angry at first, but my vet told me birds tend to not fare very well in shipment, esp young birds.
The stress lowers their immune system making them susceptible to disease and even the stress alone can kill them.

I have also ordered about 30 chicks, 2 different times at 15 a pop ( diff hatchery). They all arrived seemingly healthy, but I could never keep them all alive. 2-3 would die in the first couple days, then the rest would seem fine.

I will not ship anymore and I will not buy young birds, the ones I did keep up and thriving were raided by raccoons (or I think coons). No matter what I did (even in my garage!!). After the ones in my garage were eaten I vowed no more young birds.

You said yourself nothing came back abnormal, and then said they deny any wrong doing despite your vet records to prove it?
This makes no sense to me, if there was nothing abnormal then there is no wrong doing. What do you want them to do?

I know its sad, and I am sorry you lost the babies, but this still looks like a poor shipping deal to me.

 

[Shangrila Farm]

P.S. I did contact my Peacocks breeder the moment it arrived sneezing, and got the same "I cant control what happens when my bird leaves here" response. I was going to light him up, but my vet defused my anger with logic .. I knew the risks of shipping.

My peacock had 2 rounds of antibiotics, recovered fabulously.. Dropped dead

 

[RhodeRunner]

P.S. I did contact my Peacocks breeder the moment it arrived sneezing, and got the same "I cant control what happens when my bird leaves here" response. I was going to light him up, but my vet defused my anger with logic .. I knew the risks of shipping.

My peacock had 2 rounds of antibiotics, recovered fabulously.. Dropped dead

Shipping can be stressful, and create sick poultry. However, birds who fall ill from shipping tend to sleep, be drowsy, and scream a great deal. Respiratory distress would be caused from a problem before shipment, or a current problem within the keeper’s housing.

If from the shipper:
Respiratory distress tends to come from CRD (Chronic Respiratory Disease). This is caused from Mycoplasma gallisepticum, in short a type of bacteria. Birds get the sickness from contact with the bacterium, contact with infected birds (not necessarily poultry), or from conception. Yes, many infected fowl are born with CRD.

Stress is thought to lower a bird’s resistance, as well as cause relapses, so shipping could cause birds that carry CRD to show the symptoms. If the birds have the sickness when they arrive, they contracted it before they where put into the box. Which, in my opinion would make it the breeders fault, not the buyer.

This being said, CRD is very noticeable with chicks, but doesn’t always get noticed with adults. It is possible the breeder didn’t notice it in her flock (though unlikely...but many breeders do not consider CRD anything more then a cold), it passed on genetically to the chicks, the chicks became stressed during shipment, and where sick when they arrived.

If from the receiver of the chicks:
(This is not meant to slight farm-gal91 in any way, I am speaking hypothetically for a situation...I know this doesn’t apply to you) For all we know the keeper is housing the birds in dirty cedar shavings, in a drafty and moldy room? There could also be hidden substance making the chicks ill, as something can affect chicks that we can’t see or smell. I remember a batch of my chicks was dropping over dead, and I couldn’t figure out why. A family member later told me they sprayed a bug spray in that location, a few days before the arrival of the chicks.

 

[farm-gal91]

Upon investigating the breeder, conditions are definitely not clean and more than half of the chickens are sneezing and sickly. Definitely found the reason why mine were sick. Will be raising my own this time around. Shipping would not have been the issue, in this situation unfortunately living conditions at the breeder were.