In part one of the series, I shared the trials and tribulations of trying to use two foster hens to adopt and raise 12 chicks from a hatchery.
You can read Part 1 here:
Cheeper By the Dozen - Part 1
Part Two - Tragedy Strikes
It's been a rough week for Team Omelette! All of the foster chicks have died. Heartbreaking!
Hindsight showed me that my flock was becoming sick right before I brought the chicks in. Egg production had fallen off and their pooh was very watery. I'd blamed those two things on molting and on a change in their diet because they were free-ranging more and eating a lot of grass.
That was not the case. They developed some kind of respiratory sickness. Right after I introduced the new chicks, I noticed that one adult bird was making a cough/sneeze sound. It was a wet, mucous-y sound. I made a mental note to keep an eye on her. But by the end of that day, six adults were sneezing. By the next morning, all of the adults were doing it. The adult birds were still eating and drinking and moving around. There was no nasal or eye discharge.
The vet and I do not think the chicks were the source of the germs, since 1) the symptoms in the adult birds started before the chicks arrived and 2) the chicks were the last to get sick.
CAUTION! What follows here are the details of my experiences and the advice of a vet with respects to my flock and their unique symptoms. This is not a substitute for advice from your own vet. DO NOT read this and go on to medicate your ill birds on your own. Call your vet and follow their advice.
My usual vet doesn't treat birds, so she referred me to another who is familiar with avian concerns. He recommended immediate treatment with antibiotics. Luckily, the antibiotics are available at most farm supply stores.
The difficulty is in the dosage amounts. This bag of tetracycline is measured to add to 100 gallons of water that large animals such as cows would drink. It takes a tiny fraction of it to add to a few gallons of water for my flock.
I used my kitchen scale to weigh out the 7.62 grams of tetracycline needed to treat one gallon of drinking water for the adult birds. Since my scale doesn't measure in fractions of grams, I measured out 7 grams in one container and 8 grams in another. Combined, it averages out to roughly 7.62 grams for two different one gallon water containers.
And the 4 grams for treating one gallon of water for treating the chicks.
The medicine had to be mixed fresh each and every day.
Whatever this germ was, it hit the chicks hard. All of them died within about 36 hours. They would be acting normal and healthy and within a few hours would sicken and die. Even with the antibiotics. It was awful.
Four days after I started the course of antibiotics, the Team was starting to show improvements. All of the adult birds were getting better. The sneezing was subsiding. I continued the antibiotics for ten full days to be certain all of the germs were gone.
For me, the decision to use antibiotics on my flock was easy even though I make every effort to use homeopathic means to treat illness. I felt that the situation was critical enough that I would lose the entire flock if I didn't use the tetracycline.
It was awful to lose all the babies like that. I spent a few days second guessing my actions and choices. Should I have isolated the babies and not tried to use foster hens? Should I have isolated the hens and babies from the rest of the flock? There are no clear-cut answers. I used foster hens to raise chicks in with the flock before with no trouble at all.
I learned some important lessons though and won't write-off signs and symptoms of illness as something benign anymore. I sure don't want to go through another ordeal like this one!
In Part 3 of this series of articles, I'll detail the aftermath of the illness and what steps I took to clean and disinfect the coop.
No comments:
Post a Comment