Susan Skylark
Chirping
- Apr 9, 2024
- 133
- 156
- 89
My first hatch (now 4 weeks old) I lost one chick out of six on day 3, he was a little small and wasn’t growing like the others and was depressed for half a day before I found him dead. The others were fine, no blood or diarrhea, etc, just dead. I figured it was a congenital defect or failure to thrive and wasn’t too concerned.
My second batch is 3 days old, most of them are growing like gangbusters but again I have several small, depressed chicks. One was colicky for at least 24 hours (rolling over to peck at his vent/flank) but there are no other symptoms in any of them besides depression and rough down. Two died this afternoon and I euthanized a third. I necropsied all three. All birds were eating, the colicky chick had a rather gassy cecum, one had dark red coloration on various serosal surfaces (can be a sign of sepsis), no sign of bleeding, diarrhea, neurological signs, or respiratory issues.
I’m no expert in birds, but in mammals this would either be a really nasty virus, a virulent strain of something like E. coli, or a clostridium. I can’t do much about the former two but I can at least treat the rest of the hatch for clostridium. I disinfected the brooder and accessories and medicated the water with amoxicillin and individually dosed the two remaining iffy chicks.
Has anybody else dealt with ulcerative colitis in baby quail or do you have any ideas for a differential diagnosis? Also, is this something I’ll have to deal with in subsequent hatches even though the young birds have no contact with the older birds (clostridium can be difficult to eradicate from the environment, think tetanus and botulism). Thanks!
My second batch is 3 days old, most of them are growing like gangbusters but again I have several small, depressed chicks. One was colicky for at least 24 hours (rolling over to peck at his vent/flank) but there are no other symptoms in any of them besides depression and rough down. Two died this afternoon and I euthanized a third. I necropsied all three. All birds were eating, the colicky chick had a rather gassy cecum, one had dark red coloration on various serosal surfaces (can be a sign of sepsis), no sign of bleeding, diarrhea, neurological signs, or respiratory issues.
I’m no expert in birds, but in mammals this would either be a really nasty virus, a virulent strain of something like E. coli, or a clostridium. I can’t do much about the former two but I can at least treat the rest of the hatch for clostridium. I disinfected the brooder and accessories and medicated the water with amoxicillin and individually dosed the two remaining iffy chicks.
Has anybody else dealt with ulcerative colitis in baby quail or do you have any ideas for a differential diagnosis? Also, is this something I’ll have to deal with in subsequent hatches even though the young birds have no contact with the older birds (clostridium can be difficult to eradicate from the environment, think tetanus and botulism). Thanks!