The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: plt102 on July 11, 2012, 09:11:23 am
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My chicks are about 8 weeks old and looking healthy but one was found dead last week with no obvious cause. Went to let them into their run this morning to find another poorly nearly dead one. I have isolated it to nurse it but I am worried about the others. Going to worm our big hens and give them some tonic but not sure what to do with my youngsters. Could it be the wet weather?
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Any sign of blood in their droppings ? You haven't got a drinker in the coop have you ? Wet bedding ?
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Finding it hard to keep bedding in the coop as they keep scratching it out. Ill put some more in now. Their water is in a dog dish. No sign of blood. I keep moving their coop onto fresh grass. I'm a bit flummoxed. Off to get poultry tonic and flubanvet then back to see if chick no 2 has survived.
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you ha vent done eney thing wrong .You could off fed these birds medicated chick crumbs i notice iff i dont feed this i will loose some .So you are not on you re own .The others might be OK i lost 2 last week just bad luck .next time use medicated crumbs arbro feeds .
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Have they got coccidiostat in their crumb/pellets? (sorry - wrote this at same time as VF posted)
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Are the medicated ones much more expensive?
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There was some discussion about the relative pros and cons of this on a previous thread plt102
http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=23459.msg226865#msg226865 (http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=23459.msg226865#msg226865)
I expect that they are a little more expensive but I didn't ask at the shop as we had already decided to go the coccidiostat route
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perfect - thanks for the advice. Had given poorly chick a tonic and some water and it is now snug on hot water bottle and towel in cat basket. fingers crossed.
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Our local agri store only sells medicated crumbs and we have to travel if we want unmedicated. In the case of the 2 suppliers we use the medicated crumbs are actually slightly cheaper.
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cool thanks - i'll shop around
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If your chicks are 8 weeks old, they are usually about ready to move onto growers pellets. Not sure if you are intending to give the crumbs so that they get the coccidiostat ??? . If you only have a small number of chicks they probably won't finish the sack before they are ready for growers.
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Our growers pellets have coccidiostat in them too... but I was quite surprised at just how much crumb six chicks and mummy hen got through in the 4-6 weeks they were feeding them crumb exclusively(although I expect the squizzers and rats had their fair share!!).
Then we just tipped the rest of the crumb into the growers and cracked on with that.
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Probably best with a bag of medicated growers then, plt102.
Hope the rest stay healthy. :fc:
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I have lost more chicks by feeding them on medicated crumbs you are exposing them to medication that they probably dont need
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Possibly.
My friend rears all her chicks without medication ..... no losses to date.
I tried without medication last year and had no losses.
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We feed chicks with no medication if they are reared inside. If they are under a broody outside they go on medicated. Down side to medicated feed is they grow a lot slower. At 12 weeks under a broody on medicated they are same size as 8 weeks inside on unmedicated. We have only had one develop coccidiosis -twice in fact at 4 weeks and nearly 6 weeks. Both times her crop was filled with probiotic yoghurt and she was fine in 24 hours. She is now nearly 5.
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They are on a mixture of crumb and growers as they are a mixture of sizes, bantam and large fowl. Chick number 2 died last night but others looking fine at moment. Will get some yoghurt on standby while looking for a different feed supplier x
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We use probiotic yoghurt for all manner of sicky chicken problems. Seems to work well but never use it on sour crop as it makes it worse as it can go off in the crop. Gail Dumelow reckons it's a little wonder cure and other swear by it. I administered it in desperation after the vet pronounced Lucy terminal having heard of people using a spot to get chicks digestive systems started ASAP. We use it on all our chicks at day two and use unmedicated chick crumb (can't do that with broody reared as mum won't let us near them). Other say it's complete rubbish, but I know what I saw. A chick hunched up pooing blood and guts one day and jumping around happy as Larry the next.