sick chickens...are the eggs safe to eat?

[AmpersatChick]

Today we had one of our roosters and 2 hens become lethargic and have runny white poo. As soon as I noticed I quarantined them and gave them nutri-drench. Tomorrow we will try to get something to treat for worms and cocci, which seems to be the recommendation I'm finding here on other threads.

By big question of the moment is that they are young and only a week ago started laying regularly. I was so excited that we have a bunch of eggs for breakfast saturday but when chickens are sick is it safe to eat the eggs? What about the bird itself? This isn't really something I had considered before and now need to know! Thanks!

 

[Beaky Buzzard]

Um, I wouldn't eat them...If they are on medication , that scares me. I'm no expert though just my personal view=)

 

[Nambroth]

Only a few chicken diseases are zoonotic (can be passed to humans), and of these, I am not aware of any that can be transmitted vertically (though the egg). If I am incorrect anyone is welcome to correct me!

That said, most chicken medications and wormers will have a withdrawal time, during which it is not considered safe to eat the eggs as they may pass medication through the eggs. It all depends on what you give them.

I hope your birds recover quickly!

 

[dawg53]

Only a few chicken diseases are zoonotic (can be passed to humans), and of these, I am not aware of any that can be transmitted vertically (though the egg). If I am incorrect anyone is welcome to correct me!

That said, most chicken medications and wormers will have a withdrawal time, during which it is not considered safe to eat the eggs as they may pass medication through the eggs. It all depends on what you give them.

I hope your birds recover quickly!

x2

 

[AmpersatChick]

Thank you! They have not been medicated as of yet so that answers my egg question, we'll have yummy breakfast tomorrow morning

Still feel weird about eating the meat of a sick bird, but again, they aren't medicated, and all of you responses are reassuring.

This morning one of the hens was looking normal, one hen a little better, eating and drinking at least. But my poor roo. He wasn't shaking anymore but still not getting around or eating and now his toes are all curled up

 

[Math]

I hope your hens and rooster recover quickly and completely. Do you have other chickens? How are they? Has there been any disease in the past? Could the chickens have eaten something to make them sick?

I am beginning to be apprehensive about letting my hens free range. I hope they don't get something to make them sick. After free ranging for an evening this week, the following day I had one hen to be slow but another day and she was doing better.

 

[AmpersatChick]

We have 11 total chickens they are about 6 months old. 2 are roosters, one rooster and two hens are sick the other 8 seem completely fine so far. The more I read, the more it sounds like it could be ANYTHING which is frustrating. We've wondered if they ate something poisonous, we have a compost bin with kitchen waste, we have walnut trees, they free range, we have two dogs, the neighbors have cats, we keep clean water and bedding but maybe too cooped up so we opened the windows back up.

Wondering if it could possibly be malnutrition? We feed them Dumor Layer feed but when they ran out we didn't worry too much about getting more right away since they do free range and eat the compost, they weren't out of feed a whole week, could that happen that fast? and what is with his crippled toes? I didn't start out too worried, it is what it is I suppose, it's just hard to know where to start with chickens, all issues sound the same!

Oh! And some most of the birds sick and well are starting to have black specks on their pretty red combs and waddles. The healthy roo has developed a white patch on his earlobe...can you tell we're completely new to this?!

 

[AmpersatChick]

Well, all the chickens are looking back to normal this morning!

Even my roo whose toes had gotten curled up and couldn't walk is up on his feet looking normal. All we did was quarantine and give nutridrench once a day so who knows.

 

[Math]

Glad your chickens are better. Did they fully recover?

 

[AmpersatChick]

Thanks! They made a complete recovery! Think maybe it was a nutrition problem but aren't sure.