I got a call from the dept. of Ag's veterinarian who did the necropsy on my chicken yesterday. He just left a message, which made me feel awful. He said that this poor chicken had numerous serious injuries, dating back at least six months! It had a broken keel bone, was extremely emaciated and dehydrated, and it's intestines were basically destroyed by diarrhea! There's almost nothing more that could be wrong with this chicken!
The only thing that mitigates my guilt is that this chicken was given to me less than six months ago, so it didn't suffer it's broken bones at my house.
He didn't tell me what organism caused the diarrhea, but I'm treating them all with sulfa in their water. The most likely organisms are salmonella and coccidia. The eggs are all fine, as long as we cook them well. No other birds appear ill, so I'm kind of at a loss.
2 comments:
oh, that's a real bummer. But, I guess it's part of the farm style. Poor chicken. ;(
Sorry to hear that. But don't be too hard on yourself. There is a learning curve to farming. Hang in there. Wonder how you tell when a chicken has coccidia...
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