The Poultry Keeper

AndyH · Joined: 08 Oct 2005 Posts: 7 Location: uk

two out of my twelve hens have has what seems to be diarrhea for the past few months? the feed has not changed and whilst the birds seem fine i just wondered if anyone had any thoughts as to what i could do and what the problem may be.

Andy

Knobby · Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 9:28 am Post subject:

Hi, do they still seem "fit & healthy" ???

AndyH · Joined: 08 Oct 2005 Posts: 7 Location: uk

Knobby · Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 9:50 am Post subject:

Just looking thru my books, I havent forgotten !!

Aussie Chick · Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 9:53 am Post subject:

It could be worms.

AndyH · Joined: 08 Oct 2005 Posts: 7 Location: uk

if its worms is there a best product treatment ?

Knobby · Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 9:58 am Post subject:

Flubenvet ! Lots of info on it on the board !! Very Happy

Aussie Chick · Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 9:59 am Post subject:

Flubenvet. There is a post link in Golden Nuggets.

Lisa · Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 10:22 am Post subject:

Have they been wormed since it started? I had a chicken with persistent diarrhea that seemed otherwise healthy and that was the first thing my vet suggested.

I also gave her some live yogurt to try to settle her tummy.

Keep a close eye on them for other symptoms as these would be clues as to what else it might be.

And check their condition - if their digestion isn't working properly then they won't be getting all the nutrition they need and will probably be losing weight too.

I certainly sympathise - I do understand what you mean about it being messy Confused

Explosive is another word that springs to mind! Shocked

The chicken shed was not a nice place to visit for a couple of months and I got sooooooooooo fed up cleaning. Thankfully none of the other chickens stood behind Lara at the "wrong" time, so at least I didn't have to clean the other chickens too Laughing

The only other thing I can think to suggest is a trip to the vets.

My vet was stumped because without other symptoms there was nothing obvious wrong with my chook. (She is not a specialist poultry vet, but she's very keen on chickens and she went away to do her research to see what she could find out).

And I searched and searched on the internet but couldn't find anything to help without any other symptoms.

Sadly my Lara didn't make it. When I noticed she no longer seemed happy and healthy, she went on a one way trip to the vets. I asked them to do a post mortem, so I could be confident that whatever was wrong with her wasn't about to affect the rest of my chooks.

They found she had some sort of liver disease (she had a shrunken, pale liver). They said it would have been a genetic problem - I was unlucky and it was just a "one off". Although I had another "unlucky one-off" with another related chicken (she died of a tumour on her digestive system some months earlier).

Hope you have better luck with yours and some simple worming will sort it out.

summayah · Joined: 14 Apr 2005 Posts: 4289 Location: luton

There's also another product on the market now verm-x and apparently that is much easier to dose than the flubenvet. It's also organic I believe. You could also get some diatom and apparently that's also good to ward of worms and isn't carrot supposed to help too? Can't remember where I read that...

Lisa · Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 11:20 pm Post subject:

Not tried them myself, but there is a whole host of "nutritional" solutions quoted, and carrot is one of them. Eg at the KingBirdFarm pdf:

Remedies for Health Problems of the Organic Laying Flock

But it doesn't say how much, how often, for how long etc...

I think the idea of all of these it so make the the chicken's insides less favourable to internal parasites and then to have a flushing action on the digestive system to get rid of anything inside (aka diarrhea!)

David T · Joined: 14 Apr 2005 Posts: 81 Location: Norfolk

I have a similar problem with one of my Buff Orp cockerels.

I took a specimen of poo to a VERY specialist poultry vet here in Norfolk and they found loads of 'motile bacteria and trichomonas' in the poo.

The advice was, if the chooks are otherwise fit and well give them an oregano based product called Herban...used a lot in large poultry and game bird producers.

If birds are ill, they need antibiotics, either Aureomycin or Terramycin, 1 teaspoon in 1500 mls of water for 3-5 days.
This treatment is only for the above named bugs.

David

Peckhams · Joined: 25 Sep 2005 Posts: 43 Location: Scotland

Agree with above - before anything more serious shows/develops...
No point in taking your chucks to the vet, yet.
But if you collect a fresh pooh sample (nice job) and drop it in to your vet then they can test it and identify worms relatively easily. (May be polite to call your vet and warn him/her before you deliver your deposits!)Sometimes it's useful, even if you are fairly certain it is worms to find out which type and how best to treat them - as already said flubenvet seems to be the one most usually given.
Good luck.

Lisa · Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 3:11 pm Post subject:

If you're taking in a poo sample, I was advised to collect specimens over 3 days as not all internal parasites shed every day (and it was okay to put them all in the same pot).