Our flock was struck by illness about three weeks ago, and now that the worst seems to be behind us, I wanted to share my experience. Our first sign that something was wrong happened abruptly. Our beloved Hexen (pictured below) did not go in to the coop at night with all the other chickens, which has never happened before. I was doing a headcount when I realized, for the first time in a year, we were short one. Matt and I searched the backyard and found Hexen under the table on the back patio. I noticed immediately that her eyes were dilated and she seemed disoriented. I held her for a few minutes and she seemed to go back to her usual self, so I put her up on the roost and watched her for a few minutes. She chatted with the other ladies and moved to her usual spot, looking fine.
(Hexen giving me a hug)
The next morning, she was gone. I found her lying at the bottom of the coop, no outward signs of distress at all. I know chickens have a variety of health issues that can impact them quickly, and the whole flock seemed healthy, so we mourned her death but didn't think anything unusual might be happening. Three days later, our mighty, handsome Aztec, and our first rooster we've ever had, died. His death had no warning; he was walking around, healthy and looking virulent as ever, and then he was dead in the same hour. I knew at this point something was seriously wrong with the flock.
I tried locating an avian vet in my area, but couldn't find one. Ultimately, after coming up without a lot of answers, I decided to treat a variety of possible causes. I would normally NOT recommend treating illness blindly, but with few resources in the area and not a lot of time, I decided to get antibiotics started immediately. Matt and I ran down to our local feed store and purchased penicillin and needles, which I'll admit, are pretty terrifying. I'm comfortable with needles, having grown up with a Diabetic sister, but penicillin requires a higher gauge needle because it has chunks in it. We did research online, which came up with a variety of answers, about how much to administer, and then gave shots in the breast to each of my chickens. This was much more difficult than I anticipated, because chicks don't have a lot of meat in the breast. I read differing opinions about whether or not it was safe to give it in the thigh, but many forums seemed to indicate chickens can go lame/struggle to walk afterward. We settled on the breast. The first night went by without any issue. We also added vitamins into the chicken's water, as well as a dose of Corid, as I suspected Coccidiosis may be to blame.
For three days, we gave penicillin shots and Corid. We only had one issue with the shots; one of our chicks seemed to have a negative reaction on the last day, and was very disoriented afterward and had trouble walking. We immediately brought her inside and made her drink sugar water, then isolated her in her own kennel until she looked better. It took about an hour for her to perk up, and after that she was fine.
We haven't had any other issues since. I still don't know what caused the two deaths, and we probably over-treated our chickens, but two deaths of healthy chickens in three days is unusual. The flock seems to be doing fine now, and in fact, one of the chickens who we'd been worried about because she wasn't growing started to rapidly grow and gain weight following the round of antibiotics. Whatever the culprit, we seem to have killed it. For good measure, we did a very deep cleaning of the coop, and also expanded the run so wild birds no longer have access to my chickens' food. Much of my research indicated the wild birds carrying various bacteria, lice, and diseases likely had something to do with it. We're moving forward with a stronger focus on bio-security, and will keep our fingers crossed.
(Aztec, my first rooster and our favorite chicken)
