sick chick please help!

[tracyork]

I have a rooster that is presenting many of these symptoms: red eyes, droopy tail, hunched, stumbling, almost asleep on his feet, slow. He looked fine yesterday, and even this morning, but tonight he looks on the verge of death. Everyone else looks fine, so far...

The cocci diagnosis looks right, except that he is much older than birds that are generally infected. He hatched in early April, so he is 16+ weeks old.

Is there something else I should be looking at, or should I just track down some corid to treat tomorrow?

A secondary question, is that except for his 3 siblings, the rest of my flock is older, 8 months or more. Does it hurt them all to be treated? Does it benefit them? Is there a withdrawal period after treatment, as with the wormers?

He is separated currently. We will see what tomorrow brings. Any input appreciated.

Thanks,
Tracy

 

[chickened]

Finish the treatment as instructed on the bottle. You never want to stop midpoint as it can lead to resistence. When you get to TSC, look in the cattle section, that's where you will find the Corid

Corid is not labeled for poultry dosages. and does not have drug resistance.

Although Corid is a commonly used medication for poultry it is not labeled for use in chickens. As such, we can not provide dosage information for non-standard usage. A simple web search should provide the information required.
Please Note: Some of the medications and supplements we sell do not have FDA approval for laying hens and/or meat birds. If you have questions about the safety of using any medications on your birds please check with your local veterinarian or county extension office for safety, efficacy or proper dosages

Amprolium is not an organism, so is not an antibiotic in the sense I think you mean. It is an analog of Vitamin B1, and works by preventing the uptake of thiamine (B1) by the organism which causes coccidiosis. Amprolium makes the creature's body an environment hostile to the development of coccidiosis, without actually attacking the coccidiosis organism. It's like a placebo food for the coccidiosis microbe, which gets no nourishment from it. To some degree amprolium also reduces the uptake of thiamine in the creature who is eating amprolium in its feed, so it is only administered until the young chickens are old enough to have built up an immunity to coccidiosis, from low-level environmental exposure to it. Then they are switched to unmedicated feed. (This is fairly common for management of small poultry flocks; I can't speak about the management of large-scale operations.) Using amprolium does not contribute to drug-resistant microbes.

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_drug_resistance_of_amprolium#ixzz24oHZfDHC​

 

[chickened]

I have a rooster that is presenting many of these symptoms: red eyes, droopy tail, hunched, stumbling, almost asleep on his feet, slow. He looked fine yesterday, and even this morning, but tonight he looks on the verge of death. Everyone else looks fine, so far...

The cocci diagnosis looks right, except that he is much older than birds that are generally infected. He hatched in early April, so he is 16+ weeks old.

Is there something else I should be looking at, or should I just track down some corid to treat tomorrow?

A secondary question, is that except for his 3 siblings, the rest of my flock is older, 8 months or more. Does it hurt them all to be treated? Does it benefit them? Is there a withdrawal period after treatment, as with the wormers?

He is separated currently. We will see what tomorrow brings. Any input appreciated.

Thanks,
Tracy

Sounds more like rotaviral enteritis, which is common.

 

[seminolewind]

I have a rooster that is presenting many of these symptoms: red eyes, droopy tail, hunched, stumbling, almost asleep on his feet, slow. He looked fine yesterday, and even this morning, but tonight he looks on the verge of death. Everyone else looks fine, so far...

The cocci diagnosis looks right, except that he is much older than birds that are generally infected. He hatched in early April, so he is 16+ weeks old.

Is there something else I should be looking at, or should I just track down some corid to treat tomorrow?

A secondary question, is that except for his 3 siblings, the rest of my flock is older, 8 months or more. Does it hurt them all to be treated? Does it benefit them? Is there a withdrawal period after treatment, as with the wormers?

He is separated currently. We will see what tomorrow brings. Any input appreciated.

Thanks,
Tracy

Hi Tracy. I've had illnesses here that have affected older birds when they're only supposed to affect the young. With coccidiosis, or any illness, the perfect word for symptoms is "usually". So if it were me, I would treat for coccidiosis. It won't hurt to treat them all, it would be preferable to treat just the younger ones if possible. I am not sure about a withdrawal period, maybe someone else knows.

 

[seminolewind]

Quote: Chickened, I'm one of those people who has their morning coffee outside with my chickens. I hang out with them quite a bit every day. If one is not right, I will catch it. I'm always checking crops and examining poop. If someone is not coming for a treat, I know it. I'm obsessive with my pets, and if someone were to have a bloody stool or not eat or not act right in any way, I would catch it.

In 5 years, I have only had 2 that presented with bloody stool. The rest were just ruffled up and listless, no unusual poos noted. But all responded well to Corrid.

It's unfortunate that there is so much misguiding information out there on the web. Most of us here give advice based on what they have experienced, and can't diagnose illnesses on a website. We just try to help someone figure out what their chicken might be sick from. Wish we could do more.

 

[chickened]

Chickened, I'm one of those people who has their morning coffee outside with my chickens. I hang out with them quite a bit every day. If one is not right, I will catch it. I'm always checking crops and examining poop. If someone is not coming for a treat, I know it. I'm obsessive with my pets, and if someone were to have a bloody stool or not eat or not act right in any way, I would catch it.

In 5 years, I have only had 2 that presented with bloody stool. The rest were just ruffled up and listless, no unusual poos noted. But all responded well to Corrid.

It's unfortunate that there is so much misguiding information out there on the web. Most of us here give advice based on what they have experienced, and can't diagnose illnesses on a website. We just try to help someone figure out what their chicken might be sick from. Wish we could do more.

I know what you mean about time with birds, I can spot a sick one real quick.

A friend of mine decided to get in the chicken business several years back, she ended up with a hen about 4 months old that was listless, huddled up and not eating. She called me I went up to her house and looked the birds over. There was no bloody poop, no signs of abnormal poop at all. She was told by several people on line that it was cocci... and a few other things so she gave them all the meds she was advised to give. The bird was very thin. I opened its mouth and it had a feed sack string around it's tongue and it was starving... looked like classic cocci to me and I know what a bird with cocci can look like trust me.

When raising breeders you must be real careful to not over-medicate you can end up with sterile chickens. Which is why I tell people to make double sure you know what you are treating and on-line diagnosis that are absolute are the worst for that. Then they post in a few months in the incubation thread "my eggs are not fertile" LOL.

This same person had a bird that showed cocci symptoms, I told her I did not think it was but she insisted it get treated. I told her I would treat it. I gave it Tylan injectable only and after 3 injections the bird was fine... not cocci, of course I have had birds that never got treated for cocci and survived just fine.

One thing I always do if I get cocci which I have not had in 3 or 4 years is to move the birds to a knew pen when I get a case of it.

If a bird is really getting cocci past the age of about 10 weeks at the latest I usually see that it is a sanitation issue, over crowding or some other management issue or possibly too clean and the bird did not get an adequate exposure to the protozoas and never really built an immunity in the first place... but that is rare.

I have never seen a necropsy on a bird without internal parasites or signs of past ones either... they all have some form of internal parasites and to say that an overload killied the birds is speculation at best because some birds function fine and other do not with the same amount of parasites.

It sounds as if you take great care of your birds.