South Carolina

[huckleberryfarm]

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See, as soon as you say, colony and detect an odor, I'm out of there!

Finding our first snake ever on the farm is plenty for one week!

My Dickey incubator is completely full. And that means 300 eggs.

Plus I have two Hovabators totally full in lockdown and about 100 chicks in the nursery outside and about 50 still in the house. I got a new coop on Friday that is now officially the "Nursery". My old Nursery is now the Teenager coop. The old Nursery was 10 x 10 and a tall building. I couldn't keep it warm enough. My new coop is 6 x 8 but it's shorter and the chicks seem warm and snug inside. I can move them out after about a week which makes me a happy girl! I plan to hatch all winter. I'm not I could stop even I tried! That's bad, isn't it?

good grief woman what all are you hatching out? 350 eggs at one time. wow..!!

They won't all hatch! I don't bother candling so it adds up. But I'm hatching Silkies, Marans and Ameraucanas. All different colors. I have two Lavender Ameraucana babies now!

 

[pinkwindsong]

Susanne, my black Am that came from you're farm, is still looking very girly... ill have to get a couple more from you sometime with all those babies running around..

I leave today to go on vac with my mom, daughter, sister and niece, I have Colton in charge of my chickens , I got to say Im worried about them and my dogs. I know he knows what to do . I just hope he doesn't forget to do it.. Im keeping my fingers crossed that no predictors will come while im gone and wipe them al out.. thats my biggest fear..

talk to yall soon..

)O(
Pink

 

[Larkspur88]

Hey guys. I'm having a heck of a time over here. I'm not sure anymore what is happening to my dear chickens. I have family telling me to give up the hobby.

I've had that awful cocci of doom forever. And now yesterday I had a 7 month old hen with paralysis in the neck. She had 2 episodes of this. And on here people are telling me it's probably marecks disease. I just want to cry! I haven't even brought home anything new in quite a while that my outside chickens would be exposed to. But if it's marecks it would explain the off again and on again weakness a polish mix has and when i think about it he actually does look paralyzed in the legs. But that could be weakness from his intolerance to cocci. I dunno. It's a nightmare over here.

 

[huckleberryfarm]

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I'm so sorry! I don't have any experience with either so I'm no help. Don't give up on chickens though. Surely it can be worked out. Cocci sounds awful.

 

[huckleberryfarm]

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Have a good vacation! I'm sure Colton will do fine. Anytime you need anything, just let me know.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

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Can you have one tested for Mareks? Maybe you would get a discounted price on the blood work or do they have to do a necropsy to check? I have already forgotten. You see why i got out of the field. My brain just is no good at medical stuff. Health I can do but remembering diseases and symptoms as well as what to treat with takes a huge book for me to keep going back to.

Have you checked them for cocci again? If it is indeed reoccurring then moving them out of that tractor would help. I know you have moved them to different ground but remember how hard that stuff is to kill off of surfaces!

Don't give up! I know it is a tough struggle! Believe me, with as many as I have it seems what can go wrong will go wrong. I had an 8 wk old chick drown the other week in a small kiddie pool! It had water containers to drink out of but it chose the pool?

You are a good mommy, so don't feel bad and don't give in to life's crap that gets thrown at you. It has just been a tough summer.

 

[Larkspur88]

I'm at work glancing at the blood panels and I don't see any that can test for mericks. I plan to open up my bird if it passes on to check for growths. We shall see. But it may hopefully be bad cocci in the hen?? She is pooping with a bit if of blood. Sigh

 

[Larkspur88]

Yes I did check the hen yesterday for cocci. She had some really really odd cocci and tons of it in the slide. It was much much smaller than it was before.

And I'd move them but they are in a permanent chicken coop...not a tractor! D:

I'd also let them free range but I have jack russells and they eat the chickens...

 

[WestKnollAmy]

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Sounds more like a bad case of coccidiosis.
You should be able to send off blood work to test for Mareks. I know an office lab would not have panels for it. You may have to call the lab and ask for it as they seldom list it in the books for small animal practices. I am not sure it is exactly called a Mareks test but should be something like an ELISA test to help determine if they have it. Been several years since I dealt with having that done on mine so I can't remember all we went through to find out about it.
You try Clemson to see if they can run the tests. They weren't much help a few years ago but said they were looking into it. It seems it wasn't cost effective.

Growths show up only part of the time with Mareks but it is worth a shot if the bird does pass on. There are many good indicators in a necropsy that they had Mareks. My poor vets hated to see me coming with a dead bird as they just didn't care to deal with chicken stuff and it sometimes was inconclusive. Not many people care to have a necropsy done on chickens around here so the learning curve is small.

If you don't have good luck with chickens, try ducks. Mine are very hardy and their stool samples are always clean, even as babies.

 

[Larkspur88]

Well I unfortunately work for a vet with no avian knowledge outside of schooling which for him was years and years before I was even born. He's been very helpful though. The vet filling in yesterday basically refused to look at my chicken. Pfft. And his WIFE works at the exotic vet clinic in Columbia. Oh well.