To treat as Cocci or not?

[AndreaS]

Has anyone had a chick that was less than a week old and not on the ground yet get Cocci? Is that even possible?
Agnes is 6 days old and has a history of pasting up, has been cleaned up twice daily, was eating and drinking just fine until today.
She's acting puffy, lethargic, breathing very heavy, and I just caught two poops- one brown diarrhea with a small amount of blood and the next one nothing but white urate with a spot of chunky blood.

They are on medicated starter crumble, given water with nutri drench one day and save a chick electrolytes another day (always with an additional waterer of plain water). They have a red heat lamp, and are on paper towels with a layer of pine shavings underneath. Could be that she ate some pine shavings- they had pushed aside the paper towels Thursday night when I came home and pecking at the shavings. Could a stuck shaving cause this?

I have both Corid and Sulmet- If I need to treat I know I need to do is ASAP. No other chicks are showing signs yet.

What do you guys think? Cocci this early, no exposure to dirt, and medicated feed (I know medicated feed isn't a guarantee) ??

 

[AndreaS]

So I just got her to eat some crumble mixed with electrolyte water, and saw two more poops. One was mucousy with a bloody tinge and the other was solid, with a bit of urate and some tiny bloody bits at one end.
She looks miserable- droopy- breathing very heavy- but alert.

I wish I had a better idea of what I am dealing with here. If it was from eating shavings, all I know to do is feed her a bit of olive oil to help things glide through.

If by chance it is Cocci, I know I need to get them all medicated as soon as I can...I just don't want to jump to that conclusion without someone who knows telling me if that sounds likely.

 

[AndreaS]

Thought I'd update this thread for the sake of the archives, even though it got no responses.

I realize now I was thinking of cocci wrong. I was thinking of it like a disease, and didn't want to treat for it unless I was certain that was what she had.

So, I separated Agnes for a day for monitoring and to give her extra nutrition. I gave her electrolyte water and vitamins by dropper, moistened her crumbles with water and got her to eat. Every few hours I would make sure she ate/drank something and I would watch her poop. She slept alot and I monitored poops as they became more solid and didn't have any more blood. By the next day, she was acting normal again, and had nothing but solid normal looking poop, so I put her back in with the other chicks.

A day later she started acting like she felt bad again, puffy, droopy, had diarrhea, and had some bloody poops.

So, I did alot more reading online and gained a better understanding of cocci, how all chickens will have a certain load of it, and they build up immunity and keep it in check. I also read that some people will treat with Corid to help their younger birds build immunity...apparently, medicated feed is often ineffective at doing this. So I assumed Agnes was just a weaker chick and having a harder time not allowing it to overwhelm her (hence her getting better with extra nutrition and succumbing again when that extra attention ceased). I decided to treat everyone with Corid since it can be used to help build their resistance to the types of cocci. 2 days after Corid treatment had begun Agnes is 100% normal and starting to act spunky/thriving like the other chicks. Even when she wasn't showing signs of illness she seemed weaker/slower than the others.

I was still confused about how they would have exposure to it being that they are in a brooder box with no dirt....until it occurred to me, I had picked up small rocks from our driveway to place in their waterers because I didn't have any marbles. Duh!

I think I will do another round of it when they get on dirt. Here is a link to Peter Brown's article that helped me understand cocci better, in case someone else stumbles upon this thread and needs this information: http://www.firststatevetsupply.com/content/view/16/37/

 

[speckledhen]

I'm sorry you got no responses. This is the first I've seen your thread.

Yes, they can have cocci without touching the ground. There can be things that mimic cocci as well. I had a friend who had an entire batch of chicks die in the brooder without bloody poop. I couldn't figure what killed them. Necropsy showed a mutated strain of cocci not known to our state, came in the chicks themselves from the parents. It can happen, yes.

They can have oocysts in their gut at hatch without being on soil. Cocci strains are mutating now and they are finding unnamed strains, not one of the known 9 types, in necropsies. I know of at least two cases of this.


I put dirt in their brooder the first week of life to prevent cocci so you did nothing wrong by putting rocks in the brooder. This is what prevents a cocci outbreak, by allowing them to build immunity right away. Broody-raised chicks don't get cocci-they peck in mom's poop (she's already immune) and they get on soil much sooner than chicks raised in a brooder, usually.

Your chick may have had something else wrong or it may have just been weak and very susceptible.

 

[AndreaS]

Thanks, Speckledhen. No problem on the lack of responses, that was one of those situations where if I did a little more reading on my own I could come up with a decent hypothesis. It's just frustrating when you can't figure it out yourself.

Scary about the newer cocci strands...I wonder if they are seeing this across the board with the strains that affect other animals too?

I wondering if this might be my last batch of hatchery chicks that I order...I may just let one of my girls do the work for me next time (I have a Faverolles who goes broody every year) then of course I will have to dispatch of the roo's, ugh. Haven't had to go there yet.

It's been a frustrating go round for me this time. I have one Faverolles chick with a hernia (vet confirmed), one Faverolles chick with a seriously misaligned beak (she seems to be eating and drinking just fine) and this weak little Partridge Pendasenca, Agnes, mentioned above. This is out of 7 chicks!

at least my EE's and Welsummers are without problem.

Do you treat your chicks in a preventative way for cocci, (as in amprol in their water) or do you just expose them to dirt asap?

Edited to add: Huh. interesting too to note that they can be born with it. So that means you may have only a few strains that are native to your soil, and then when you add new birds, their dropping could introduce new strains?

 

[speckledhen]

Hatchery hens are not made of the finest genetic material, it seems to me. I lost 13-14 to egg yolk peritonitis, internal laying, ovarian cancer or a combination of the first two. Ovarian cancer can come with age, but the first two start occurring about 2-3 years of age. One by one, they all passed on. EYP is chronic and internal laying is incurable.

My birds from reputable breeders (not propagators, but true breeders of heritage type stock) don't have these issues. I have one breeder quality Buff Orp now who is probably suffering from reproductive malfunction, beginning when she went into her first big molt, but other than her, all those issues have been in hatchery hens, except for two who were daughters of hatchery hens.

I never treat for cocci in a preventative way, no. I just have treated when I have seen signs of it, but I haven't had cocci here in ages and ages, not since I started with dirtbaths in the brooder when I raise them and mostly have been letting hens raise chicks. I've once or twice thought I saw signs of cocci, but it turned out to be intestinal lining shed, not cocci, so I've gone from having to treat every group to rarely having to think about it.

If you read through these threads, you can see what I've been through with hatchery stock, though not related to cocci:


https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=362422

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=195347

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...lks-update-rip-beautiful-reba/50#post_8068877

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...ences-on-egg-reproduction-production-necropsy


ETA: I see you are in NC, neighbor. I'm right at the NC line, less than a mile from it, actually, but I'm near Murphy and you're way up there around Raleigh.

 

[AndreaS]

Yes, I've followed all of your internal laying threads. It's so heartbreaking....but I'm glad that you've shared them with us in such detail.

Is your main approach still draining the fluid and Penn. G shots?

When I first heard about all the internal laying/EYP issues I wondered about soy-based feeds, since they are now linking over consumption of soy to reproductive disorders in humans, but the fact that all of your internal layers have only been hatchery stock seems to point to something else.

I think I'll add some dirt to my brooder today.....thanks for the input!

 

[speckledhen]

Yes, I've followed all of your internal laying threads. It's so heartbreaking....but I'm glad that you've shared them with us in such detail.

Is your main approach still draining the fluid and Penn. G shots?

When I first heard about all the internal laying/EYP issues I wondered about soy-based feeds, since they are now linking over consumption of soy to reproductive disorders in humans, but the fact that all of your internal layers have only been hatchery stock seems to point to something else.

I think I'll add some dirt to my brooder today.....thanks for the input!

I don't drain every hen, no. I only drained Olivia and a couple of others whose abdomens became a huge issue for them walking. They don't always retain fluid like that-a few of mine never showed bloated abdomens, just cessation of laying and massive weight loss. Sometimes, just what amounts to an overdose (twice the norm) round of penicillin is enough to dissipate the fluid/infection for awhile.

You know, the soy based feeds have been a hot topic for years. I think it may be something to consider, yes, but how to get away from them in a cost-effective manner is difficult. There was a study about flax seed helping stave off internal laying, but mine were given flax seed periodically and it didn't seem to have an effect. And the fact that it was the hatchery stock, not the breeder stock, seems to point to bad genetics, not diet.

 

[AndreaS]

And the fact that it was the hatchery stock, not the breeder stock, seems to point to bad genetics, not diet.

Exactly. I buy soy free layer feed for my small flock, and it is $35/50lb bag
If I had a larger flock that might not be possible. The amount and variety of legumes, etc they have to add instead of soy really increases the cost. I hadn't heard about the flax seed....I give some to my girls occasionally, but I have also heard you can over do that.

I wonder if it could be a combination of genetics/diet- meaning the diet of the hatchery stock could predispose offspring to certain reproductive issues over a longer period of time and huge volume of breeding? If somehow diet could create genetic abnormalities? They are starting to talk about that a little with people, how it's not just what you eat when you are pregnant, but what you eat before hand as well (whew. no pressure there) Of course, it just as likely could be due to a lack of selective breeding on behalf of the hatcheries. I imagine most folks who loose birds due to these issues don't even know what they are dealing with since so few people do necropsy or even know what they are looking for. It's a shame....I suppose someday they will have figured the cause out. In the meantime, I am grateful that you have documented your cases so well. We all learn so much just from reading through other members experiences. Hence the reason why I updated this thread. You never know when someone will find helpful information in the archives.

 

[chickobsessed]

I just read this posting in the forum. I am so glad to have this site available. I have found it to be extremely helpful and informative. I just wanted to thank you for posting Peter Browns article. It was very easy reading and informative.
I have some chicks i bought from a store, that came from hatcheries. I am new to raising chickens. Love the experience of raising new chicks, but hard to see chicks getting sick. I have started the corid treatment and the chicks seem to be improving.
Just wanted to say thank you!