What to Do for a Lethargic Baby Chick
Practise yous consider yourself a chicken person?
Well, I was not when my husband decided we should begin raising them. Yous can imagine how I felt when he told me he was going to get our first chickens.
For starters, I knew naught near chickens.
However, I quickly changed my mind every bit nosotros became more self-sufficient.
Part of raising chickens is understanding how to recognize and care for some of their common illnesses. Today, that is what I'grand bringing y'all.
Let's get started…
1. Fowl Pox
If you notice your chickens developing white spots on their skin, scabby sores on their combs, white ulcers in their rima oris or trachea, and their laying stops and so you should abound concerned that your chickens are developing Fowl Pox.
At that place are handling options for Fowl Pox. You tin can feed them soft nutrient and give them a warm and dry identify to try and recoup. With adequate care, there is a great chance that your birds tin survive this affliction.
If you would like to remove the odds of your birds fifty-fifty contracting this disease at that place is a vaccine available. If not, you lot should know that they can contact this illness from other contaminated chickens, mosquitos, and it is a virus so it can be contracted by air likewise.
2. Botulism
If your chickens begin to accept progressing tremors you should abound concerned. If your chickens have botulism the tremors volition progress into total body paralysis which does include their animate.
It is a serious illness.
You will likewise find their feathers will be easy to pull out and expiry usually occurs within a few hours.
However, what can yous do nigh it?
Well, there is an antitoxin that can be purchased from your local vet. Though it is considered to be expensive. Notwithstanding, if you catch the disease early plenty yous can mix 1 teaspoon of Epsom salts with one-ounce of warm water. Y'all can give information technology to them by dropper one time daily.
If your chickens take contracted this affliction it means that there has been some type of dead meat left about their food and h2o which contaminated it. Which ways this affliction is avoidable every bit long every bit you keep your chickens in a clean surroundings and clean up any dead carcass from around their surround.
3. Fowl Cholera
You should be suspicious of this disease if you lot meet your birds begin to have green or xanthous diarrhea, are having obvious joint hurting, struggling to breathe, and have a darkened head or wattle. Fowl Cholera is a bacterial disease that tin can be contracted from wild animals or food and water that has been contaminated past this bacteria.
Notwithstanding, the biggest downside to your chicken developing this illness is there is no real treatment. If past some take a chance your craven survives, it will still ever be a carrier of the disease.
It is usually meliorate to put them downwards and destroy their carcass and then information technology will not be passed.
However, at that place is a vaccine for your chickens to foreclose the affliction from ever taking hold.
four. Infectious Bronchitis
This disease hits close to home because it wiped out one-half of our flock when we were new to raising chickens. You lot'll recognize this disease when you begin to hear your chickens sneezing, snoring, and coughing. And so the drainage volition brainstorm to secrete from their olfactory organ and eyes.
Their laying will end likewise.
Withal, the good news is yous can get a vaccine to stop this disease from impacting your chickens.
Yet, if you determine against that and then y'all will need to move quickly when seeing these signs. Infectious Bronchitis is a viral disease and will travel quickly through the air.
To treat Infectious Bronchitis, requite your chickens a warm, dry identify to compensate. I gave my birds a warm herb tea and fed them fresh herbs, which seemed to help.
5. Infectious Coryza
Yous will know that your birds accept caught this illness when their heads go swollen. Their eyes volition swell shut and their combs will also swell. So the discharge will begin to flow from their eyes and noses. They will end laying and volition have moisture under their wings.
Unfortunately, there is no vaccine to finish this disease.
In one case your chickens contract this illness they should be put down. If not, they volition remain a carrier of the disease for life which is a take chances to the residue of your flock.
Be sure to discard the torso afterward so no other animal becomes infected by information technology.
However, the light at the end of this tunnel is that fifty-fifty though this disease is a bacteria it only travels through contaminated water, other contaminated birds, and surfaces that have been contaminated with the bacteria.
If you keep your chickens protected from other random chickens and go along their coop and h2o clean they should exist condom from this disease.
6. Marek's Disease
This disease is more common in younger birds that are usually nether the age of 20 weeks.
You will know that this affliction has struck your baby chicks if you begin to run across tumors growing within or outside of your chick. Their iris will turn greyness and they will no longer respond to light. And they will become paralyzed.
Unfortunately, this illness is very piece of cake for them to catch. It is a virus which means it is super easy to transmit from bird to bird. They actually go the virus by animate in pieces of shed skin and feather from an infected chick.
And sadly, if your chick gets this disease information technology needs to be put down. Information technology will remain a carrier of the disease for life if it survives.
However, the good news is there is a vaccine and it is ordinarily given to mean solar day-old chicks.
7. Thrush
Thrush in chickens is very similar to thrush that babies get.
Y'all'll find a white oozy substance inside their crop (which is a space between their cervix and body.) They volition have a larger than normal ambition. The chicken will appear lethargic and take a crusty vent area. And their feathers will look ruffled.
Information technology is important to mention that thrush is a fungal disease. This means it can be contracted if y'all allow your chickens to eat molded feed or other molded nutrient. And they can as well contract the disease from contaminated water or surfaces.
Even though there is no vaccine, it can be treated past an anti-fungal medicine that you tin get from your local vet. Be sure to remove the bad food and clean their h2o container too.
8. Alveolus Disease
This disease first appears in the form of poor laying skills and a weak craven. Every bit it progresses, yous will notice coughing, sneezing, breathing bug, bloated joints, and possibly expiry.
Now, at that place is a vaccine for this illness, and it can be treated with an antibiotic from the vet. Nonetheless, information technology can exist picked up from other birds (even wild birds) and it can be transferred from a hen that has it to her chick through the egg.
As a precaution, keep an eye out for whatsoever of these symptoms and so it can be treated speedily and effectively.
9. Newcastle Illness
This disease also appears through the respiratory arrangement. Yous will begin to see animate issues, discharge from their nose, their optics will begin to expect murky, and their laying volition end. Also, it is mutual that the bird's legs and wings will become paralyzed as well every bit their necks twisted.
This disease is carried by other birds including wild birds. That is how it is ordinarily contracted. However, if you affect an infected bird you can pass it on from your wearing apparel, shoes, and other items.
Yet, the good news is that older birds commonly will recover and they are not carriers subsequently, but virtually baby birds volition die from the disease.
There is a vaccine for the affliction although the US is working to rid the country of the affliction all the manner around.
x. Mushy Chick
This affliction plain will bear upon chicks. It ordinarily shows upwards in newly hatched chicks that have a midsection that is enlarged, inflamed, and blue-tinted. The chick will have an unpleasant scent and will appear to exist drowsy. Naturally, the chick will also exist weak.
This affliction doesn't have a vaccine. It is usually transmitted from chick to chick or from a dirty surface where an infected chick was. And unremarkably, it is contracted from an unclean surface area where a chick with a weak immune organisation contracts the bacteria.
At that place is no vaccine for this disease, although sometimes antibiotics will work. All the same, normally, when you come up in contact with this disease you will demand to immediately split up your healthy chicks from the sick ones.
Utilize caution as the leaner within this disease (such every bit staph and strep) can impact humans.
11. Pullorum
This disease impacts chicks and older birds differently. The chicks will show no signs of activity, take a white paste all over their backsides, and show signs of animate difficulty. Though some will die with no signs at all.
Nonetheless, in older birds, you lot volition see sneezing and cough on elevation of poor laying skills.
This is a viral illness. It tin can exist contracted through contaminated surfaces and other birds that have become carriers of the affliction. Unfortunately, there is no vaccine for this affliction and all birds that contract the disease should exist put down and the carcass destroyed so no other brute will selection upward the disease.
12. Avian Influenza
Avian Influenza is about commonly known equally bird flu. It was one of my initial fears of owning chickens because all you hear virtually on the news is how people get sick with bird flu from their chickens. However, after knowing the symptoms y'all'll be able to put that fear to rest.
You need to know how to act rapidly if you are afraid your backyard birds have come in contact with information technology.
The signs yous volition notice will include respiratory troubles. Your chickens will quit laying. They will probably develop diarrhea. Yous may notice swelling in your chicken'southward face up and that their comb and wattle are discolored or have turned blue.
And they may fifty-fifty develop dark red spots on their legs and combs.
Unfortunately, in that location is no vaccine and the chickens infected will always be carriers. Wildlife tin even carry the disease from bird to bird.
In one case your birds get this disease, they demand to be put downwardly and the carcass destroyed. And you volition demand to sanitize any area that the birds were in before e'er introducing a new flock.
Use great caution considering this disease tin brand humans sick.
And here is a great resources about avian influenza for all lawn craven keepers. Hopefully, this will assistance to put your mind at residuum almost this illness and your backyard flock.
13. Bumblefoot
Bumblefoot is a disease that you lot'll know exactly what you lot're looking at when y'all see it.
It begins with your chicken accidentally cutting its pes on something. It can happen when they are digging in the garden, scratching effectually in mulch, and then many other ways, simply then the cut gets infected. And the chicken's pes will brainstorm to great. It tin can even swell up the leg.
You tin can treat it by performing surgery. If non, the infection will eventually take over the chicken and claim its life.
Patently, bumblefoot tin can happen very hands and at that place isn't much yous can do to prevent it as well keeping a shut heart on your chickens' anxiety. If you detect they have a cutting and then exist sure to wash and disinfect it to prevent this disease from setting up.
That is all of the common chicken diseases I have for you today.
However, there are many less mutual illnesses too. But be sure to e'er pay attention to your flock and stay alert to whatever changes. Never exist afraid to inquiry. It is meliorate to overreact than to underreact and miss something that could exist detrimental to your whole flock.
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Source: https://morningchores.com/chicken-diseases/