Sick And Dying Chickens

[mrjonyoung]

Thanks for reading my post. Not a very avid poster more of a voyeur.

So, here is the background. Got 100 Road Island Whites and 100 Road Island Reds, 4 weeks old, here in Lampang Province. Purchased from a shop that sells feed and medication in the center of town. They sell 3,000-10,000 birds a month. Have a coop and a run. Well ventilated. Well protected. Feed is dry and so is the coop. Give the the birds regular feed, 21% protein which is supplemented by foraging and with fruit and vegetables.

First 2 weeks, loving the chicken farmer thing. Healthy and happy birds. Coop weathered several major gusts and downpours. Whens the shoe gonna drop? Boom! Wife comes back from morning rounds "The chickens are sick." It had been in the back of my mind, a scratchy little paranoia I hoped would never become reality.

10+ birds. Symptoms: drooped wings, head hung low, standing NOT laying down usually, feather ruffled and white/yellowish poop.

Monday, May 27- 3 dead.

Tueday- 3 more

Wednesday- 3 more (sprayed the coop with and antibacterial cleaner used for such purposes)

Thurday- 4

This morning- 4

I cant really face walking into the coop anymore.

I have been giving the birds several different meds I got from the place where i bought the birds. But the death and infections continue.

I have the sick birds isolated and give then meds by hand. the other birds are getting meds in the water.

So, the question is, Anybody out there been through this or have any proven recommendations about treatment?

Thanks for reading!

[Jotham79]

Have they been vaccinated? It looks like they are too young to be letout to free range. Remove (cull) any birds that show signs of illness.

Good luck

[Jotham79]

Also you can look at this site: http://www.apa-abayouthpoultryclub.org/Edu_Material/Poultry%20Diseases/EXTERNAL%20SYMPTOMS%20FOR%20DIAGNOSING%20POULTRY%20DISEASES.pdfer

It looks like either newcastles of fowl pox, but take these with a gran of salt

[RedBullHorn]

Contact your provincial veterinary department, every provinces have a center. Get them to check it out so they can provide an accurate diagnostic.

[mrjonyoung]

Have they been vaccinated? It looks like they are too young to be letout to free range. Remove (cull) any birds that show signs of illness.

Good luck

Forgot to mention that. Yes, I gave them the vaccination cocktail sold. It includes Newcastle for sure. I have the birds isolated and will give the meds a few days and if no improvement I guess I will bring out the ax.

Any advice on medications or remedies?

[Jotham79]

Without knowing the disease it is hard to say what treatment. In general if it is bacterial and intestinal then ciprofloxin and if it is repiratory then amoxycillin. Best to consult a vet or get your birds tested as RBH recommends. I took some quail to the government center in Phitsanolouk some years ago and they don't take long. You need to bring them a couple of dead birds. A few weeks back we lost alot of chickens in the heat. Anything that stresses the birds leave them open to all sorts of infections.

[Ackybang]

Hello mrjonyoung - sorry to hear about your chickens.

You might want to, or get your wife to ask the locals where you live - anyone with a lot of birds. I never had any experience with them before, but in my village, I learned it's quite normal for many chickens to die every Year, all around the same Months - usually when the weather turns inclement. At first, I thought it was an outbreak of birdflu, but was soon put straight - same symptoms you're describing, listless and tired, and don't even attempt to run away.. Seems to be no rhyme or reason to it - some birds get it, and some don't, for what ever reason.

I actually sought out some meds for my chickens - I only have a few, but was informed they still have a chance of dying, even if you give them the meds - it seems to be nature's cull. I would definitely separate any that you see are obviously displaying the symptoms you describe - as far as I'm aware, if they're all couped up together, the disease could be more easily communicable in such young chicks. You might want to clean out the coup thoroughly, also. Have you asked where you bought them ?

I didn't know there would be issues in letting them scratch around freerange for themselves - mine, I pretty much leave to it, and have since they were tiny - haven't lost one yet. Chickens seem pretty unkillable - but there are certain natural food stuffs / plants that are poisonous to them - you might want to check out the area they're loose in for something.

Good luck.

[cornishcarlos]

Hi,

That sucks....

I have lots of poultry but only 5 chickens.

Being away at the moment, I am having to trust my wife with their welfare.

On the phone to her yesterday and she told me that the neighbours chickens had all died the other day.

Same symptoms as you described. She told me it was 'white poo' disease !! That was the translation anyway.

Apparently, very infectious and will kill off the majority in the area.

Don't have any remedy suggestions, as I'm still not sure what the actual real name of the disease is ??

As others have said, with any poultry/fowl at the 1st sign of any ailments, separate birds quickly.

Let us know if you manage to save any or get any more info.

Feel for you buddy

[shaggy1969]

Guys I feel for you !!!

Have experienced this myself and have had the heartbreaking job of culling the sick chickens and ducks (usually young and adolescent birds).

This always happened after extended periods of drought,like what it has been this year.

I tried to do some research as to why the apparently healthy birds would just get sick and die within a couple of days...Newcastle's,Avian flu and the like.

Nobody knew what it was,the locals had the same problem...birds just dying for no reason !!!

The only common denominator was that it all took place shortly after rainfall after the drought.

This got me thinking and so I did some more searching on drought/rainfall problems.

I am not 100% sure if I was correct but I firmly believe that it was nitrate poisoning the link is NZ based but I think that the problem is the same.

Maybe a solution would be to keep young/adolescent birds inside their coops until some time after the first heavy rain......making sure the floor of the coop is raised or concreted so the birds can not forage from the ground and absorbs the toxins.

As I say, this is only my thoughts and could be wrong.

Hope your loses are few.

Shaggy

[kikoman]

I can not be very helpful, but I brought 20 , 4 month old red warren hens that would start laying in about 2 weeks. About a year later I brought 11 white warren cocks, raised them all to good eating size and put them all in my freezer.

Over the years we began losing a hen for no reason, we purchased them over two years ago and are down to our last 5 hens we still get 3 eggs a day. My wife wants to keep them until they all die off from natural causes.

We were lucky in not losing any of the roosters and I enclosed my hen house completely with wire and blue screen mesh to keep all the wild birds out.

I would take then to the government to have a correct diagnosis made, then you can treat the sickness correctly,

Wish you good luck and hope you do not lose to many more chickens.

Cheers:

[loong]

A lot of what the locals call "Farang chickens" are dying around here recently

They show symptoms of sickness, but it is actually from stress.

This time of year it is very hot and humid and when you have a lot of chickens in a small space, the heat is magnified. Farmers will spray their chickens with a mist spray to alleviate the heat stress.

Also in the last few weeks in this area we have had daily thunderstorms and the thunder has been extremely loud. The "Farang" chickens do not like the loud noises. The stress from the heat and the noise causes many chickens to drop dead.

The price of eggs around here is rising because so many egg farms have lost a lot of their laying hens and this is attributed to the stress from the noise.

This may not be applicable in your case, but you have ripped them away from their safe environment and caged them in an unknown territory. This is stressful. The heat adds more stress and if you are getting thunderstorms even more stress because of the noise.

Edited May 31, 2013 by loong

[Jotham79]

I think I have found what is wrong. It is called Salmonellosis. I haven't found much in the line of treatment, but you would difinitely want to keep your sick chicks isolated.

http://www.agrihunt.com/livestock-industry/1110-poultry-bacterial-diseases-salmonelloses.html

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publications/6/diseases-of-poultry/179/salmonelloses

[pigeonjake]

i would say cocsidiosis, with the birds being so young, and coming to a new place, they can pick this up just by scrating around,

did you have them on any heat by the way, becouse that could do it to make them sick with cold,

jake,

[Jotham79]

Coccidiosis was my first thought as I figured the first big rains would create the right conditions. Coccidiosis usually presents with bloody stools. Salmonelles presents with white poo and with all the other symptoms given. Coccidiosis is very treatable and is present to some degree in most free ranging poultry. Much of the practices to prevent coccidiosis would work on Salmonelles.

[mrjonyoung]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions, barring the yaa baa recommendation. What I have found is that raising chickens other that Thai chickens is tough and stressful. Trying to control the environment of a large area is no easy task in Thailand.

I lost about 30 birds or more in the first bout I had with whatever sickness they had. Once I got the sick birds effectively separated and isolated; and got the correct medication (sulfur based drug) going things improved. It required hand feeding meds to the sick birds which seemed like a waste of time because they just kept dying, but in the end some of the sick birds did recover. so spending the time to give the meds rather than culling them was worth it.

Problems

A week and a half ago the birds started shitting blood which I was told and through research found could have been the same problem I had before. The treatment was the same drug but the store told me to use a pill. Getting 175 birds to say ahhh is a nightmare. Laziness breeds invention. Crushed the pills to a rough powder and mixed it into cooked rice adding rice until all the powder was stuck to the grains. I spread the grains of rice into the feeders and tried to manage the feeding frenzy so all birds got a chance to eat some rice. Next day almost no bloody poo.

Heat solution

Heat has not been a major factor. My coop is shaded and I used grass roofing which definitely helps keep it cool. The mistake I made was not spraying down the whole area where the birds would be living with a cleaner (omni-cide or bacterial disinfectant etc.) as was suggested. I have since sprayed the coop and all the run areas.

Problem

Dead birds in the morning, I built a roosting perch which accommodates every one of the 175 birds, but they don't use it. Instead the pile into one corner of the coop and one of them winds up dead. The perch was the solution which wasnt working. Roosts, as i read, should be the highest thing in the coop. My Thai GF said build a lower one to get them thinking about it and apparently that has worked. From 1-3 sleeping on the perch now the are 100. That keeps them off the ground and not smothered to death,

Conclusion

Profitability is questionable. From 200 birds to now 160+. profits going down. 3B per egg is good if you can keep the birds alive without spending too much money and time doing it.

160 birds/ 75% output per day = 10,800 per Month GROSS. LESS- 6 bags of feed at 450 a bag = 8,100B Net. Total investment approximately 10,000B including feed for the 4-5 months before the start laying. Realistically, you can get about a 300,000B out of 200 birds over 3 years. That includes about 25% mortality of initial flock.

Revisions and Improvements

I can now see the advantage to raising birds in cages but I prefer to free range. The eggs have a considerably higher nutritional value. Which, I dont know about you,but is definitely a value since me and my family will also be eating them. The bird to sq. ft. ratio for my run is too high. And in a future scenario I would increase the grazing area. The grass doesn't get enough time to regrow with 160 birds. And let me tell you! chickens eat a TON of grass and plants. I supplement the grass available in the run with by cutting the plentiful grasses around the area. Without the grass consumption I am sure feed cost would be +10-20%.

I will keep anyone interested posted on the progress. All the NET and GROSS and BS could turn out to be just that, BS! Once they start laying we will see the real numbers. Thanks again!

[cutieloudmouth]

August 11, 2013

A CHINESE poultry worker has been confirmed as having contracted the deadly H7N9 bird flu virus,.......

A total of 134 cases have now been reported on the Chinese mainland, including the Guangdong case.

State news agency Xinhua said that 44 people had died of the disease - which includes a recent fatality following the release of the latest official figures a month ago.....

^search it^

i still think yaa baah is the only recommended medicine.