Water poop, sitting with ruffled feathers and head down?

[DTchickens]

Thanks Daniel for the wormer schedule, that would have been my next question. I think I will go with the drops to put on the hens and roo. I am going to get them this afternoon. I am gonna try to catch Beauty and isolate her to make sure she is eating. I feel much better after your posts, I was beginning to think we might have some horrendous disease like Newcastle or that Merks thing... She still is off balance and I see her standing around our pool pump...maybe the humming noise is comforting, she still searches for food but does not scratch. I really thought she would have died by now. I hope it is still not too late. I am still monitoring the laying hen with the sneezing and hoarse "talk" she has been quiet everytime I visit her. She is not sneezing any longer, that I have heard, and still no runny nose or eyes. Poo still looks normal mostly so I don't know whether to release her back with the others or not? It has been 6 days so she would be approaching the 7 days it takes for that to spread if that CRD is the case. What do you think? Do I keep her up for another several days or put her back out in a day or two?

Gingers, if she appeared normal I would probably put her back in with the rest of the flock assuming there were no other symptoms. Except in the case she were underweight, then I might keep her to herself for a couple weeks or so where she can eat without competing with the rest of the flock until she is feeling more to herself. You could wait at least 30 days to insure no other symptoms arise, I try to sell 100% healthy fowl which means they feel in good shape, don't have lice/worms, no symptoms of illness etc.. But I still encourage people to quarantine for 30 days when they buy in case something arises they may have caught upon arriving on the yard or from somewhere else.

Sorry for my late reply, have been dealing with a ear infection/possibly perforated eardrum and have for the most part just been laying around other than performing necessary chicken cares.I haven't even been sitting outside in the mornings watching the chickens with my cup of coffee like I normally do as much

.

God bless,
Daniel.

 

[holderh]

I'm I. Tn too. Some of my chickens have been sneezing for months now with no other symptoms.y vet said that it was most likely due to the weather having been so dry. He said if they were sick I would know by now so if they are showing no other symptoms I wouldn't worry about the sneezing. I also took a fecal sample to them which shows round worms so they gave me a granule wormer. They said since mine also free range I should worm them twice a year

 

[gingers5]

Daniel, so sorry you have not felt well, I have been dealing with sick kids of my own or would have been back on here. I caught Beauty the Black Jersey and she is still in confinement. I went with the natural wormer d. earth. The lady at TSC croaked when I told her what i was gonna use the agri-mectin for. I did start her on Sulmet 2 days ago. She is standing in a large dog crate most of the day. She sits from time to time but does not put her head down anymore that i have seen. She still seems off balance I put the earth in pine shavings in her cage and sprinkled a small amount on her food. She is still not eating much but drinking. She is thin her feathers make her look quite large though. She does not seem tons better, but is not any worse either this has been going on forever it seems. I will keep monitoring her. I let the other hen out and an hour later she was sneezing again and open mouth breathing which I had not seen since day two of her being confined. Would I be dealing with an outbreak by now with these 2 hens if it were flock threatening like the above poster said? I observed her tonight eating and was not open mouth breathing but sneezing from time to time. I began to get a "wrinkled" egg last week every 3 or 4 days. I read about IB doing that...maybe that was what they had and are over it now? This is much harder than I thought. I had chickens as pets when I was young. A huge RIR that I dearly loved and had for 5 years and 2 little bantys for 2 or 3 years and never had any problems.

 

[DTchickens]

The lady at TSC croaked when I told her what i was gonna use the agri-mectin for. I did start her on Sulmet 2 days ago. She is standing in a large dog crate most of the day. She sits from time to time but does not put her head down anymore that i have seen. She still seems off balance I put the earth in pine shavings in her cage and sprinkled a small amount on her food. She is still not eating much but drinking. She is thin her feathers make her look quite large though. She does not seem tons better, but is not any worse either this has been going on forever it seems. I will keep monitoring her. I let the other hen out and an hour later she was sneezing again and open mouth breathing which I had not seen since day two of her being confined. Would I be dealing with an outbreak by now with these 2 hens if it were flock threatening like the above poster said? I observed her tonight eating and was not open mouth breathing but sneezing from time to time. I began to get a "wrinkled" egg last week every 3 or 4 days. I read about IB doing that...maybe that was what they had and are over it now? This is much harder than I thought. I had chickens as pets when I was young. A huge RIR that I dearly loved and had for 5 years and 2 little bantys for 2 or 3 years and never had any problems.

Lol, a lot of people will croak for the things we use on our chickens. It's even funnier when you walk into Walmart and mention you are looking for a syringe and once they ask what for you tell them "To worm chickens with" (if I had seen them at TSC I would have bought one before stopping at walmart). But in reality, the cattle wormer is not such a bad thing; I've read dosages from people using as much as 1/2 a ml on birds (that is a dosage for 11 pounds) and it having no ill effect. I don't use that much though, like I said, I use a eyedropper for the Ivomec and a syringe for the Safeguard. Using a eye dropper I just use simply one drop which was told by me to cover about 2 pounds but it worked on birds even up to about 9 pounds (Shamo cock weighed 9lbs 6oz last I weighed).

Hopefully the Diamaceous Earth will do, I have heard of a lot of people that use it, I just never have so can't answer a lot on the efficiency of it. Her being off-balance is probably due to her being so malnourished, I imagine if it were a serious disease which typically causes said symptoms she would have gotten worse by now, died, or passed it on to other birds. The wrinkled/thin egg shells could be a calcium deficiency which could come from worms effecting the absorption of calcium, it can also be a sign of stress which would be brought on by the sickness/possibly other things.

On the separation: The hen was quarantined but odds are they all use the same water source, which is one of the main ways to spread disease. Unless the water has been changed then odds are since she had probably dranken out of it all of the flock has been exposed/continues to be exposed.

Disease comes around every now and then even in the best of environments, but thankfully for most people it doesn't happen much. This year I have had one of the biggest bouts with fleas (dogs) and lice I have seen in years, I suppose due to the warm weather we had all winter and this year. I even had a small outbreak of avian pox there for a little bit on some birds (mainly the Leghorns I ordered from the hatchery, didn't effect the games as badly and I believe only one Kraieköppe picked it up and all he had was one dot) which I had not seen for I would say; easily about 7-8 years or so. Comes from mosquitoes, so other than vaccinating there isn't much you can do about that disease if it shows; I don't vaccinate for anything as I believe in breeding for resistance. Some birds will have stronger immune systems just as people, so say even if the two hens had Mareks (I don't believe they do) and the rest of the flock didn't catch it, then personally I wouldn't be too concerned as it only took care of the ones which were weak/would have passed along weak offspring. The rest are likely to produce offspring which don't catch Mareks (if Mareks was the case; this can apply to other diseases as well).

From the description though and the amount of time that has elapsed, I still think a possible worm infestation could be your biggest concern just by reading the description.

God bless,
Daniel.

 

[gingers5]

Well, the sneezing hen is probably worse today. She is still eating and drinking fine, but the sneeze is almost a cough now. Maybe i should isolate her again. I think it is when she is moving, when she is at rest with the other birds she does not do it. Like you said, I would hope after the amount of time that has passed since last week everyone else would be catching by now if they were going to. I think maybe something else is going on with her....The other hen still in confinement is still doing good. I hope it will quit raining today so i can go see if she will eat something. I dont know what the lice looks like. I have several that came to me featherless on their backs and bums. My husbands grandfather said the roo he had was rough on them. Most have grown back but some still are missing around tail area and sides they are all black-sex link, and only half of them are laying I think due to molt which lasts a really long time. How do i know what to look for in lice? I dont think we have fleas at all, our dog is good and she stays in the house we use frontline on her, but i did hear at our vets that fleas are extremely bad this year.

 

[gingers5]

Went out a while ago to check on my Jersey. I have given sulmet the last 3 days 2 tb per gallon and will drop to 1 tb per gallon tomorrow. She has not eaten that I have seen. However, I made veggie soup for supper tonight and took her some. She gobbled the whole bit of it up! I was so excited! Great to see hope she is on the mend. Thanks for help all!!!