Saturday, November 6, 2010

ALWAYS SOMETHING: COCCIDIOSIS!!

I made a huge mistake today with the meat chickens! I was too busy talking to dad who was helping me move meat chickens....not paying attention.

The meat chicken cage had gotten dirty and they have take up sleeping on top of each other and pooping all over each other and they are dirty and miserable.



So I decided to move them to the huge pen with the egg chickens. I know they will be a little more tough when they are harvested but they would be happier for the next month.

I had moved most of them when I noticed this!!!



By the time I saw this, my big birds had intermingled with my sick birds. I got online and found that likely they had coccidiosis. A parasite.

See how dirty they had gotten. And since they were pooping in their food and water I am not surprised.

Sulfa is the drug to treat this which my feed store had. I added it to their waterers and will treat them for 3 days. Off one day. And then on for 2 days.

No meat or eggs for 16 days. They should be find to harvest Thanksgiving weekend. That will be 21 days.

On the farm it's always something.

2 comments:

Faith said...

Ugh. I had my first intro to it with my dairy goats. I had no idea about it before I moved here. More parasites in wetter climates, I guess.

I hope your birds recover just fine!

~Faith

Tracy Bruring said...

I sure hope so too Faith!!