New chickens to the flock with severely watery and bloody poop (graphic pics included)

[littlels]

We just purchased 5 standard sized Partridge Rock pullets (not quite a year old) and a bantam Cochin rooster. We have not had them for a whole week yet and they are pooping really watery and VERY bloody poo. I would have thought cocci, but most places I have read about it say that it mostly effects young chicks and that they stop eating, look droopy, huddle together, etc. and I'm not seeing any of that. They are in the pasture like normal, laying eggs, etc. Their behavior does not seem odd although these birds are new to me. I noticed all the poop and blood where they had been on the roost at night so I don't know if they are doing it a lot during the day in the pasture or not.

The first 2 are from the bantam rooster:




These are some pictures from the pullets. Their roost is over a chicken wire screen so they are a little further away but you can kind of tell how runny they are by the different colors.








Is this Cocci? If not, does anyone have an idea what it is and how to treat it or is it better to butcher?

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

I am not a vet...just have some thoughts here. Please read the following accordingly:

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044
according to the diagnosis charts at the bottom of this website, necrotic enteritis can cause bloody droppings

If you wish, you can take a poo sample to a vet for a fecal float for worms and check for cocci (and hopefully bacteria).

Adults can get coccidiosis when immunocompromised. So if it is coccidiosis, then why are they immunocompromised, you must ask.

In short, I am unsure of the cause of the blood. I would want to rule out worms, cocci, and necrotic enteritis myself. Watery poos can be caused by worms.

I personally would consider trying the Corid (a treatment for coccioisis) first though, since within 24 hours you should see improvement from my experience and the bloody poos disappear, if it is indeed coccidiosis. After 24 hours, if no improvement, I'd switch to the antibiotic and assume it might be enteritis. The reason I would try the Corid first is that coccidioisis can kill within 24 hours. But I have never treated an adult chicken for coccidosis and thus cannot advise you much here. I have seen chicks with coccidiosis acting normally and having bloody poos.

The Corid treatment should really last 5 days (and so if your blood disappears you would want to continue your treatment indeed), but I am deeply concerned that it might be bacterial....the problem is that a stool sample should really be tested here to see what you are working with.

Please note the antibiotics recommended on that website I listed for enteritis, if you feel it is that.

I would not administer a wormer along with the Corid or antibiotic since wormers are very hard on the chickens and they can even kill them if they are near death from something else.

I hope this helps.

 

[littlels]

Thanks! How contagious is this possibly? It was only in the new chickens we just bought right now, but does that mean the rest of my flock is already exposed?

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Thanks! How contagious is this possibly? It was only in the new chickens we just bought right now, but does that mean the rest of my flock is already exposed?

If it is coccidiosis, then yes the other chickens have been exposed if they could eat the poo (cocci are in the soil everywhere but in coccidiosis the poo becomes heavily contaminated with cocci and thus contagious to other chickens).

If it is something else, I don't know the answer. For worms, the worm eggs get on the dirt and then the other chickens peck at the dirt, giving them worms as they eat the worm eggs. So I always worm the whole flock at once. But you've got blood there and I am very concerned they might be extremely ill with something other than just worms.

Seriously, Corid is so powerful that I have always had the bloody poo GONE in 24 hours- but that was baby chicks.

I am hoping someone else will come along with more ideas....

 

[TeamChaos]

http://pluckandfeather.com/chicken-poo-chart-graphic.html Looks a lot like the coccidiosis poo pictured on that page....

 

[Eggcessive]

This may sound silly, but could that be something other than blood, say a berry of some sort they have eaten, such as pokeberries that would have come out looking like that? It is more beet-colored than blood in your pictures. Adult chickens can get coccidiosis when they enter a new environment because there are many strains of it--what you have in your soil could be different from where they came from. Blood in the stool is a later symptom in coccidiosis--they should show other symptoms. Your vet could test the stool for blood as well as the other tests mentioned previously. Good luck.

 

[littlels]

Well, I'm sure it's not a berry or something of that sort as they have no access to berries in their pasture area. Is Corid the one that once you give it to them, you can't eat the eggs for like 3 weeks? Also, someone else I talked to suggested yogurt. Anyone else tried this? What were the results?

 

[speckledhen]

Yogurt won't fix cocci. It helps soothe the intestines and replace good gut bacteria, but if it is Cocci, you need Corid. You can eat the eggs since it is NOT an antibiotic. Coccidiosis is not caused by bacteria, but a protozoan.


You didn't quarantine them, did you? You should have done that for 4-6 weeks to check for stuff like this. Never skip quarantine.

 

[chkn]

Get some Sulmet for the cocci and next Valbazen to do a worm treatment. Lots of pet supplies / farm supplies carry Sulmet. Gotta go farm supply for the Valbazen most likely.