Prolonged Diarhea, Should I be concerned?

[riftnreef]

Heres the short of it...back in October I went to the Ohio Nationals wanting only a barred rock pullet to add to my small flock of 4 golden comets. I found my "Barbie" and of course we left with a couple Silkies. At any rate, I have kept the older silkie and the BR in a seperate pen just for safety's sake. The BR had diarhea when I brought her home, and I chalked it up to stress from travel and the show...then I figured it was a change in diet...well its been months now, and she still seems to lack solid poo. The Silkie she lives with has shared this affliction since about week 2, so I worried that it was contagious...ssooooo It has been nearly three months with loose poos but absolutley no other symptoms. They eat and drink fine, no breathing problems, no worms, feathers and eyes look great. Could it just be that she is prone to the squirts? I want to get her in with the rest of my layers, but I don't want them to get sick from her.

 

[purpletree23]

Have you tried adding yogurt to their diet? Mix a little yogurt without the fake sugar with some Cheerios and feed it to them every day for a week and see what happens. Because milk products can irritate a chickens system I would give each chicken 5 yogurt covered cheerios a day for the week.

Did a vet check their stools for worms or are you just going by what you see?

 

[greenbeandreams]

No answer but interested in responses.

 

[riftnreef]

I'm basing the lack of worms on visual report...I did find a vet locally that was willing to do a fecal exam for $15 to look for coccidiosis, and she also said she could send out a blood test for pollurm, but given the lack of any other symptoms, I've been kinda holding off on that for the moment. With the weather being as rank as it has been, I would need to bring them inside for a clean sample, and then the stress of comming indoors from cold to warm and then back to cold may be more than they need right now. I guess I was just waiting for other symptoms to help diagnosis, but they are being pretty uncooperative about it...

 

[purpletree23]

Just because you don't see worms in the poop doesn't mean they don't have them. Ask the vet to check for worms. Sounds like they have reasonable prices. They just have to put the poop on the slide and look under the scope. A 'clean' sample isn't to hard. Put an old towel in a box, put the chicken in the box and in 15 minutes or less viola you have a clean sample. Sometimes vets and doctors make things sound so much difficult than they really are.


Try the yogurt and if it doesn't work and the weather gets better use Wazine as your first wormer and then Ivermectin for the second round.