Puzzling losses - Coccidiosis confirmed by necropsy

[roheryn]

I just lost my 26 week old cochin yesterday morning. She was fine the night before, and in the morning, fluffed and listless. Within an hour, she died in my arms. I took her to UC Davis and they say the initial gross anatomy suggests coccidiosis. I have two EEs, and I put in ACV in their water yesterday, and tomorrow will get some corid. I keep them in a relatively small area, 40' x 8' run, and I clean it (or at least rake it) every week. They just started laying and I wanted to make sure they were big enough before I let them go up onto our open space hill. Do you think the small enclosure just built up the bacteria?

 

[mithious]

I just lost my 26 week old cochin yesterday morning. She was fine the night before, and in the morning, fluffed and listless. Within an hour, she died in my arms. I took her to UC Davis and they say the initial gross anatomy suggests coccidiosis. I have two EEs, and I put in ACV in their water yesterday, and tomorrow will get some corid. I keep them in a relatively small area, 40' x 8' run, and I clean it (or at least rake it) every week. They just started laying and I wanted to make sure they were big enough before I let them go up onto our open space hill. Do you think the small enclosure just built up the bacteria?

The best thing to try to help them get by till you can get some corid is buttermilk.

 

[mithious]

As of this morning, we are still doing well! I will feel much better when we've gone a week with no losses, but I am cautiously optimistic at this point. I have a few with very slightly pale combs, but they've been on Corid now for a few days and hopefully we have caught them all in time.

If anyone reading this thread has dealt with coccidiosis in an adult flock, could you post a bit about your experience? Most of what I find is about chicks and I am very interested in anyone who has dealt with this in adult birds. Has anyone discovered how and why their adult hens got it? I know it is in the environment, but how would 16 months go by with no problems and then all of a sudden everyone gets sick? I would appreciate anyone's input!

My flock is about 2 months and although you asked for info on older chickens, I thought my experience might be of some help. I went out to the coop in the morning and all the birds looked fine, acted and were fine. Had to leave for about 6-7 hours, and one of the guys working on our coop/run had been pounding on the coop, after I told him not to, and it stressed the birds. I noticed a couple medium brown runny poo's ( about 1:00 pm ), but no other symptoms except a few birds looked "short"? while roosting. At last water change, about 6:30-7:00 pm, EVERYONE had massive runny poo's and I noticed no one had drank or eaten, atleast not near as much as they usually did, that whole day. ( I have since marked the full line on the water container ) I flew to TSC and bought Corid and a bunch of other stuff. I put the Corid in their water, and started them with a 1 tsp per gallon, of the powder, to give them a jump start. Then added the same mixure to their feed, about enough feed, to last them 2 hours, to get the corid in them, as I was dipping beaks, every 2 hours around the clock for the first couple day or maybe little less, as someone suggested this. That feed was the turning point for us. They LOVED the medicated mushy feed and it looked like they had liked the container bare. Thus getting a good amount of the corid in them.

The symptoms I saw after they got really sick, after another OP told me what to look for, was fluffy feathers, hunched body, bloody poo's ( we never had any bloody poo's) and no or less appetite and water consumtion. I was told that all birds have cocci, but stress can bring about an over load and make them sick, even kill them, and quickly, once the cocci becomes too much for their systems to handle. I treated for 7 days. Day 5-6 I still had a few runny poo's and the recommendation is 5-7 days. I too am going to retreat in 2 weeks for the 7 days. My birds had only been outside for a couple hours total, but not right before they got sick...but I could have brought it in on my person. There are a bunch of different strains of this parasite, 9 I think, but not sure on that number, but corid treats all. I did lower the dose to 3/4th tsp then 1/2 tsp over the course of the 7 days. I did notice, that they had stopped growing after getting sick. Before they got sick I saw a change in growth daily. Now they probably had the cocci in them, but not enough to make them sick, until they got stressed. ( all chickens carry an internal parasite load, but not usually enough to make them sick, that includes worms ) We are now 2 days off the corid and they all have normal stools, are back to growing daily enough that I can see it, and are outside in their finished run all day. Cocci lives on thiamine, corid is a thiamine blocker, and I am not yet, giving them the vitamins, 2 days from last treatment, just the electolytes, plain water and their feed.

I am now watching them closely, as we do have a large wild bird population, and since they are on the ground, the very first sign I see of a reccurance, I will put them on a maintance dose immediately, starting with that mushy med feed first to get the meds into them fast. I had no loses, but they got really sick, really fast...in the course of less than a full day...now this might have been brewing, as my feed store guy said and the stress just put them over the edge..but I have also read, that even though they become immune to whatever cocci is on my land, a new strain will make them sick again. Since I don't know which strain they had, they are on the ground, and we have lots of wild birds...I am watching! I know I need to build that thiamine back up, just wanted them to go slow and also feed some plain mushy feed, to get them going, as the feed has vitamins and such. I had also, a week before this all happened, just switched them off the medicated feed. Whether that had anything to do with this? I don't know.

Next year I have a lot of 16 chicks coming and intend on keeping them on the medicated till they are on the ground for a while. Chickens can hide being sick very well, and I suspect mine might have been a little sick, or on the verge. I also read one OP had a large amount of cocci on her land and her adult birds were getting sick. She is now having their poo tested regularly. Another thing I learned is that cocci does not always present with symptoms that are mentioned on here or other places but has many different symptoms sometimes that might not lead people to suspect cocci, it is spread through the whole flock, and they can literally get deathly sick from it in a matter of hours. A few last things I want to mention is, if I notice anything odd about them that is non specific, I will immediately treat for cocci, as it can't harm to treat them, as it only blocks the thaiamine, but can kill if I don't and it IS cocci. Also, since there is a change for secondary infections, since their immune systems are working over time. Although cocci is usually seen in week 3-6 of young birds, all chickens can get cocci.

I hope our story helped in some way! Best of luck and glad your birds are on the mend!!! Praying they all stay that way!

edited to add: I was told( by someone very knowledgeable about this and other things ) once the birds combs start getting red, that means they have built the immunities to the strain they are fighting! In my case, pink in the pullets and today I saw some pink for the first time!

 

[HudokFarm]

Thanks for sharing, mithious! And to roheryn, if I were to guess about your question on enclosures, I would say yes, it was a factor. My flock who got sick were in an enclosure and I am fairly certain that had something to do with how this all went down. In the end there was probably some stressor (my guess is the extreme heat we had a week or so before the first deaths) and that was the tipping point. Since the species exists everywhere, my guess is that the population grew over time in the enclosed run until it got high enough that with an added stressor, the hens' immune systems finally gave in. I suspect that my flock at least was fighting the organism for some time and so have been a bit ill for weeks or, more likely, months.

Mithious, your observations on your flock's illness are very interesting to read. In thinking back on our situation, my husband and I have been compiling a list of observations we had in the weeks and months prior to our obvious signs of illness, which in our case was, unfortunately, death. We had noticed for some time that although our flock had a bad habit of feather picking, they were just not re-growing feathers. Some seemed thin, but only in retrospect as when we saw them daily it didn't click. Going in to last winter they all looked so well feathered and big but this summer they all seemed to be smaller than our other flock. In the few weeks leading up to our discovery, I had mentioned to my husband that I hadn't been purchasing as much feed. Normally I would buy 150 lbs (since that is all I can store) every other week or so and all of a sudden I realized that I had only bought 50 lbs during a two-week period. We have had a lot of bugs this summer, so we figured they were eating more food outside than their feed.

When ours got sick, there were NO bloody stools. One was NQR for a scant few hours before she died; another, the first, for an entire week. The first, who was sick for a week, only seemed odd to us because she had one droopy wing. We thought she had hit it on something while she was flapping around in the coop. She had no other symptoms until her last two days. The biggest red flag we had was a pale comb, but I, to my disgust, I was so busy THINKING about what could be wrong that I never came on this site to investigate. I've had a lot going on lately and this really caught me off guard. My SOP just did not happen. I know if I had just hopped on here and typed in "pale comb" I would have eventually hit on something close to what we had. Interestingly, of the five we lost, three were the same breed. I wonder if they were closely related and their immunities were similarly affected by the situation?

Tomorrow we begin treatment with sulfadimethoxine and then I am giving them a month or so before I worm them all. In the meantime, they have an hour or two of supervised free-ranging a day and we are changing their bedding every few days. We have had hawk problems or I would let them out all day.

Good luck with your flocks, mithious and roheryn. Let us know how they come through treatment.

 

[mithious]

I'm soo sorry you had to go through that!!! Don't beat yourself up though, it's easier, in retrospect, to see these things, but at the time, especially when the symptoms don't match up to the problem, and yours don't sound like the typical symptoms, don't go there! What's done is done. I am fortunate, that I am retired, and can spend hours at a time,with my flock. I am a bit over the top in watching their food an water intake, and poo's too! I had no idea, as this is first time with any disease/sickness...not with chickens, just the sick part. We bred for immunities and natural selection, so had completely healthy flocks, that had immunities that were strong, so saw none of this before. ( also always let the broody hens raise their young and pick the ones to make it or not) There is a lot to be said in that method. That being said, there is still that one chance in whatever, that the unthinkable can and does happen.

I am now going to be keeping cord in my med kit for the chickens. The east coast has been horribly wet this summer and tons of flocks are getting cocci..wet is a breeding ground for cocci and if a wild bird, or someone at the feed store has tracked in a strain your flock has not built immunities for, and you go there, and then in a hurry forget to change your shoe to your "chicken" shoes or boots, forget to wash your hands, bam...your flock has cocci.

We ALL have those opps moments! I am glad your flock seems to be on the mend and seems we have both learned a valuable lesson, aye? Sometimes, no matter how careful we are...it's just gonna happen!!!! As long as they have their feet on the ground, there is the opportunity for disease and parasites. So even if we have perfect biosecurity, there is STILL a chance or them getting sick. Although it does significantly reduce the chances, biosecurity is not 100%, nor is anything in this life! Please be gentle with yourself and enjoy your beautiful flock!!!

 

[R.M.Qureshi]

Medicated feed is a possible thiamin blocker and can causes paralysis.

Marek's has six strains.
Classical Marek's disease or neurolymphomatosis causes Asymmetric paralysis of one or more limbs. With vagus nerve involvement, difficulty breathing or dilation of the crop may occur. Besides lesions in the peripheral nerves, there are frequently lymphomatous infiltration / tumours in the skin, skeletal muscle, visceral organs.

Organs that are commonly affected include the ovary, spleen, liver, kidneys, lungs, heart, proventriculus and adrenals.

· Acute Marek's disease is an epidemic in a previously uninfected or unvaccinated flock, causing depression, paralysis, and death in a large number of birds (up to 80 percent). The age of onset is much earlier than the classic form; birds are four to eight weeks old when affected. Infiltration into multiple organs/tissue is observed.
· Ocular lymphomatosis causes lymphocyte infiltration of the iris (making the iris turn grey), unequal size of the pupils, and blindness.
· Cutaneous Marek's disease causes round, firm lesions at the feather follicles.
· Atherosclerosis is induced in experimentally infected chickens.

· Immunosuppression – Impairment of the T-lymphocytes prevent competent immunological response against pathogenic challenge and the affected birds become more susceptible to disease conditions such as coccidiosis and "E- coli" infection . Furthermore, without stimulation by cell-mediated immunity, the humoral immunity conferred by the B-cell lines from the Bursa of Fabricius also shuts down, thus resulting in birds that are totally immunocompromised.

[FONT=arial, sans-serif]From what i know Cocci takes minimum five days to Kill a bird and the signs are obvious one way or the other from the day 1.[/FONT]

[FONT=arial, sans-serif]You also mentioned Sudden death which could be paralysis of lungs, kidney or heart.[/FONT]

 

[casportpony]

R.M., read post # 31, that bird had no coccidiosis symptoms.

-Kathy

 

[R.M.Qureshi]

Dear Kathy,

Sorry i forgot to mention that my post was actually the reply of the first post of this thread from HudokFarm. The birds had different symptoms but were diagnosed as cocci in post 10.
I occasionally have cocci outbreak in my young batches but they all show symptoms from day one or two and mortality remains low.

But is it possible for a bird to die with cocci without showing any symptoms ?

Rehan