Sick hen. Sarcina Spp. Any ideas?

[Frizzlett]

I noticed yesterday one of my hens was lethargic and not really eating. I assumed coccidiosis or worms and began treating accordingly. I took what may have been a sample of her poop (could have been somebody else’s) and ran it under a microscope to find what appears to be a bacteria called Sarcina spp. After HOURS of research and reading tons of different studies, my husband and I came up with pretty much nothing. There isn’t much information on it in chickens and no treatments that I can find. A study I read found it in the crops of broiler chickens but that was the only mention of it there. Sarcina spp is a gram positive bacteria and bacitracin is an antibiotic used against gram positive bacteria. So it should work…. Right? I don’t know how she got it. She’s the only one symptomatic. I read one study about cats carrying it and we have strays all over our neighborhood but shouldn’t this be a common thing with chickens if it was that easy for them to get?
I’ll attach a picture of my findings under the microscope. Any information is welcomed.

 

[Debbie292d]

I know very little about what many things in chicken poop look like, but that I've never seen. I searched for other microscopic images of it and found this.

https://blog.microscopeworld.com/2014/09/sarcina-under-microscope.html

It sounds like you're already giving them Corid and Safeguard or products similar, so I'd finish those, and afterward, follow up with a couple of weeks of alternating vitamin water and probiotics. For vitamins, we use Nutra-Drench and Poultry Cell. For probiotics, Hydro-Hen and we have a couple of other powdered probiotics. Probiotics adds good bacteria so may help in other ways if indeed one or more has this other bacteria. They fight off the majority of bacteria they come upon in a given day themselves, but if she/they continue to decline, perhaps more evaluation needs to be done.

I would retest the poop in a couple of days and see if it's gone or reducing.

 

[alinas2010]

Wait I feel like I’m missing part of the information here. How did you determine the bacteria species just by looking under a microscope? Did you actually gram stain chicken feces? And what other biochemical testing did you run to determine the bacteria species, though? Sorry I am not trying to come off harsh or anything, I am genuinely curious. I also don’t disagree that those tetrads look like that species, after looking it up, if that’s what you’re going off of. I just wondered if there was anything else leading you to that conclusion.

Chicken poop is likely loaded with a lot of different bacteria, mainly being gram negative rods; looking at it under a microscope, I feel like it might be really, really difficult to pick anything out, especially without a gram stain. You may also be seeing a lot of fiber and lipids that could be mistaken for bacteria without being diluted and strained out.

Also, from your research was Sarcina pathogenic? I did a quick search and really couldn’t find much on it myself. I’m curious now, too. Do you suppose it could be non pathogenic if your chickens do have this?

 

[Debbie292d]

Wait I feel like I’m missing part of the information here. How did you determine the bacteria species just by looking under a microscope? Did you actually gram stain chicken feces? And what other biochemical testing did you run to determine the bacteria species, though? Sorry I am not trying to come off harsh or anything, I am genuinely curious. I also don’t disagree that those tetrads look like that species, after looking it up, if that’s what you’re going off of. I just wondered if there was anything else leading you to that conclusion.

Chicken poop is likely loaded with a lot of different bacteria, mainly being gram negative rods; looking at it under a microscope, I feel like it might be really, really difficult to pick anything out, especially without a gram stain. You may also be seeing a lot of fiber and lipids that could be mistaken for bacteria without being diluted and strained out.

Also, from your research was Sarcina pathogenic? I did a quick search and really couldn’t find much on it myself. I’m curious now, too. Do you suppose it could be non pathogenic if your chickens do have this?

I too just assume it's some bacteria they consumed, but like everything they consume for the most part, especially out free-ranging, could have bacteria. Some could overload the system causing diarrhea or digestion issues, much like what happens with us humans.

It would pass from the crop into their digestive tract, is why I thought probiotics in their feed, plus what probiotics we give, would help counteract or fight it.

In most cases, it just passes through, and any issues with it would be short-lived.

 

[dawg53]

Sarcina infections occur in humans as well, although not common. Treatment is Cipro and Metronidazole.
Here's a link:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10544866/

Here's a link where you can purchase Ciprofloxacin and Metronidazole:
https://pigeonsuppliesplus.com/search?q=metronidazole

 

[Frizzlett]

Wait I feel like I’m missing part of the information here. How did you determine the bacteria species just by looking under a microscope? Did you actually gram stain chicken feces? And what other biochemical testing did you run to determine the bacteria species, though? Sorry I am not trying to come off harsh or anything, I am genuinely curious. I also don’t disagree that those tetrads look like that species, after looking it up, if that’s what you’re going off of. I just wondered if there was anything else leading you to that conclusion.

Chicken poop is likely loaded with a lot of different bacteria, mainly being gram negative rods; looking at it under a microscope, I feel like it might be really, really difficult to pick anything out, especially without a gram stain. You may also be seeing a lot of fiber and lipids that could be mistaken for bacteria without being diluted and strained out.

Also, from your research was Sarcina pathogenic? I did a quick search and really couldn’t find much on it myself. I’m curious now, too. Do you suppose it could be non pathogenic if your chickens do have this?

I’m not going to pretend I know a ton about it lol. I’m going off the research I did yesterday. I took 4 samples of poop from my outside group, 3 were runny and one was solid. The 3 runny poops had this in it and the solid did not.
At first we thought we were looking at a waste product of either food or medication. I did compare those samples from my outdoor group to samples I took from my chicks inside in the brooder and the chick samples were clear.

My husband searched and found a microscope picture similar to what we were seeing online. That study mentioned elephants and apes and since we don’t have either marching around our backyard, we looked for other things it could be. After a lot of searching, nothing else matched up so that’s when I did a deep dive into sarcina. I learned it was a gram positive bacteria then. I don’t have stains or anything. Just slides and a light. I usually will use the microscope to check for coccidia and worm infestations to confirm we’re treating the right thing for peace of mind and as a sort of hobby. And until yesterday that’s all I’ve ever found.

As for it being nonpathogenic… it’s possible. But most of what I read was pathogenic. A lot of veterinary cases ended in death, and even a few human cases. I found coccidia in some of my samples. My hen has starting eating a little since her first dose of medication yesterday so the coccidia could be the thing making her sick and not sarcina if it’s actually nonpathogenic AND actually sarcina. My chickens are on new grass and have been for a week. Every time we move them we get coccidiosis in someone. We have lots of wildlife here to spread it around.

I now wonder if maybe, if it is sarcina, it is common and nonpathogenic and nobody sees it because they don’t sit around looking at chicken poop under a microscope in their down time like me!

But last night, I turned to this website. To see if anyone had any ideas as to what it is if not sarcina or any information on sarcina in chickens so we could treat them appropriately if needed. My hen’s symptoms are pretty much that of coccidiosis or worms. We always treat for both at the same time. Sarcina symptoms in other animals sound pretty similar as well but for now I’m going to treat for what I know and hope for continued improvement. If no further improvement happens, I’ll move on to treating for sarcina. I will recheck poop samples throughout the week and see what happens!

 

[alinas2010]

I’m not going to pretend I know a ton about it lol. I’m going off the research I did yesterday. I took 4 samples of poop from my outside group, 3 were runny and one was solid. The 3 runny poops had this in it and the solid did not.
At first we thought we were looking at a waste product of either food or medication. I did compare those samples from my outdoor group to samples I took from my chicks inside in the brooder and the chick samples were clear.

My husband searched and found a microscope picture similar to what we were seeing online. That study mentioned elephants and apes and since we don’t have either marching around our backyard, we looked for other things it could be. After a lot of searching, nothing else matched up so that’s when I did a deep dive into sarcina. I learned it was a gram positive bacteria then. I don’t have stains or anything. Just slides and a light. I usually will use the microscope to check for coccidia and worm infestations to confirm we’re treating the right thing for peace of mind and as a sort of hobby. And until yesterday that’s all I’ve ever found.

As for it being nonpathogenic… it’s possible. But most of what I read was pathogenic. A lot of veterinary cases ended in death, and even a few human cases. I found coccidia in some of my samples. My hen has starting eating a little since her first dose of medication yesterday so the coccidia could be the thing making her sick and not sarcina if it’s actually nonpathogenic AND actually sarcina. My chickens are on new grass and have been for a week. Every time we move them we get coccidiosis in someone. We have lots of wildlife here to spread it around.

I now wonder if maybe, if it is sarcina, it is common and nonpathogenic and nobody sees it because they don’t sit around looking at chicken poop under a microscope in their down time like me!

But last night, I turned to this website. To see if anyone had any ideas as to what it is if not sarcina or any information on sarcina in chickens so we could treat them appropriately if needed. My hen’s symptoms are pretty much that of coccidiosis or worms. We always treat for both at the same time. Sarcina symptoms in other animals sound pretty similar as well but for now I’m going to treat for what I know and hope for continued improvement. If no further improvement happens, I’ll move on to treating for sarcina. I will recheck poop samples throughout the week and see what happens!

Ah okay, I see. How interesting that is was only in the 3 runny droppings! My next thought was that it could be a weird Crystal of some sort from medication, too, but like you said, who knows at this point because of the lack of literature on chicken poop under the microscope! When I did try to find literature on chicken poop under the microscope, as I’m sure you did, also, all I mainly came up with was that people look for parasites. Which even you said you bought your set up for. Really cool, BTW! But that leads me to believe that looking for bacteria in chicken poop under a microscope might prove to be somewhat of a fruitless task in a laboratory or research setting.

I can compare it to this:
I worked in a hospital laboratory in the microbiology department (briefly, I did not like micro!) and when people would come in sick and the dr would collect a stool sample to send to us for culture, we 100% of the time would not do a gram stain or look at it under a microscope, even if the dr requested that we did. It would’ve been not only a huge task to accomplish due to the amount of bacteria present in stool, most being non pathogenic, but also there are only a select few strains of bacteria that would make a person sick enough to show up in their stool. And it would be nearly impossible to differentiate those few pathogenic bacteria strains from the millions of non pathogenic strains that would be present in a stool sample simply by viewing them under a microscope.

In the case of your chickens’ poop, I do strongly agree on the unique structure/shape of those tetrads resembling sarcina. I am with you, though and I don’t think I would treat them for it, especially not without any further confirmation testing available.

Glad to be following along to see how it turns out for your chickens and to follow as you continue to view the chicken poop and see if it changes! I do hope your chickens continue to improve and feel better. Hopefully they are not sick from a bacteria such as sarcina that would require an antibiotic