AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

I hate to flood this forum with my sick chick stories and cluelessness. But............................

We lost another chick on Saturday.... no idea what happened as i didn't notice a sick chick apart from the one with a closed eye and one with a growing sore on the eye. The chick that died no idea why it did and didn't see it coming.... was expecting it to be one of the 2 bad eye chicks but it wasn't.

I've been talking about my sick chicks for a while now.... and have had suggestions to treat them but now i have photos i don't know if it would make a difference in the course of action i should take.

I emailed the lady who sole them to me. apart from offering to replace 1 of the chicks (the one with the closed eye.) she couldn't care less about 2 chicks dying within just a couple of days of having them home and others with sore eyes. Defiantly wont be buying her chicks again.

Anyways i have photos of the 2 sore eye chicks just to see what you guys think before i order antibiotics and treat them with i don't know what but i will follow any advice that is offered after you see these pics and get an idea of what i am talking about.



This is chick number #1
This sore on the eye started as a tiny dot. and over the weekend now looks like this !!!


it does not seam to affect the chick at all... but the rapid growth is frightening. The chick doesnt appear to scratch or rub it on anything. i haven't seen any behaviours that lead me to think it is irritating the chick. but the sight of it looked sore and broken and horrible. The chick eats drinks and forages fine and is quite friendly, quite likes a cuddle and things to peck at.


chick # 2.
This is the chick that worries me most.

i thought i would post a photo of the other side of the face too. which is normal looking.

She is the biggest chick of them all but only sometimes slightly opens that closed eye. i know she can open it completely, but she chooses not to. she doesn't scratch it all the time like she use to when it started (Thursday when i got her) but it looks swollen now and puffy. Poor chick came to me with a closed eye.... NOT impressed. but didn't see the chicks she chose for me out of the approximately 50 she was catching from her pen and putting in a box. Last time i leave without inspecting every chick.... grrrrrrr lesson learnt.


i have 5 chicks left now and the other 3 seam perfectly fine... but so did the one that died on Saturday. so they probably are all not fine.... i'm afraid they are all just going to drop off one at a time until i have nothing left. That will be the end of my experiences with chook keeping. Not a good start to the experience. i didnt picture it like this.


oh the chicks are all 7 weeks old tomorrow. Just incase that info is of importance to anyone....

Really sorry that there are people out there who sell sick birds to people who really care about their animals.

No idea what the growth is, but is is so unfair that people take advantage of others in this manner

Hi BFLF

I know this is easier to say, but take them all back & demand a replacement for all the chickens or a refund.

You can't let this person get away with this. I know you will be sending the remaining ones to their death but at least you won't have to deal with this awful experience, as this is not how your first experience with chook keeping should be. And the longer you keep them & the more money you spend on antibiotics will just make you want to keep them more.

Growths like that don't just turn up on healthy chickens. Something has to be wrong in the first place for something like that to turn up.

Be strong & don't take this. It may also make them change their practices/process if you stand up to them.

Good luck with the remaining little ones if you decide to keep them.

Cheers
Chicka-Dee

Well i have sent an email expressing my disappointment and concern for the remaining chicks...she knows of the previous death and the sore eye of one of the chicks already. I will see what she says, as much as I DO love these chicks. I would happily return them and will NOT get more chicks from her.

But saying that..... I do NOT want to return them. I'd rather help them if possible and help them get better. We love these little chicks and i cringe each morning when my son lets them out of the coop.... just waiting for him to come inside and tell me if a chick has died again or tell me some other bad news....


I havent even had them long enough for the new big coop to arrive ! i purchased them a brilliant chicken house and it hasnt even come yet and i am afriad there will be no chickens left for when it does come.

The first chick has a dose of chicken pox, it will heal in time. Not sure about the second one but it may be the same.

hmmmmm, i didnt know chickens could get chicken pox. But after googling it it does seam like it is possible that it could be that with chicken number 1.

But number 2 is very different symptoms. from Day 1 she was drooling water and scratching her eye.
Also i forgot to mention. her feathers on the same side as her eye are all stuck together. at first i thought it was another chicken pooping on her and her not able to see it and clean it off. But after looking at it more closely and noticing the same sort of sticking together feathers around her closed eye. i think it is her wiping her eye just above her wing. and whatever is coming out of the eye is sticking her feathers together. i haven't seen anything come out but it makes sense seeing it a little on her feathers on that side of her head and on the same side and place she could reach to rub her eye on those feathers.

Some breeders are so irresponsible, just makes me very, very, very They only care about making money.

I bought a cockatiel once and when I got home the cockatiel in the box was not the one that I had chosen and paid for. There were different types that cost different amounts. This cockatiel was a different colour and gender and much smaller and falling of it's perch; when I looked closer it had extra toes and couldn't grip also had badly mutilated clipped wings It was the little one that was at the bottom of the cage being pecked by the others.

We rang the breeder who said he couldn't remember which one he put in the box and hung up. I felt sorry for the cockatiel and kept her, I couldn't return her back to such a person, she now lives in a modified cage for a bird with a disability with lots of ladders and perches and ramps.

Here is the thread on fowl pox

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=6095

Well i wrote an email explaining everything to the lady and the disappointment i have and all the things that are going wrong with my chicks since i got them.
She made a phone call to me this morning and explained what she thinks it might be. she doesn't breed the chickens but buys them in bulk and raises them to sell them off again. Well anyways she explained from what she has researched that it is some bacterial thing that is passed to the chicks through the egg. and she said something like half her lot have passed away too and showing the same signs as mine are. She said she will refund me and it is my choice what to do with the chickens. Well of course i said i wanted to keep them because my son and i love them but would love to help them get better. We really enjoy keeping chickens despite out crappy start to the hobby so far. She is also dropping off some antibiotics/iodine to give to the chicks because she said it is curable. she is making calls to the person she got them chicks from and said she has never seen this happen and this is the first lot she has ever had troubles with....

So i am putting my faith in her hands that she will drop these meds off today and they will help my remaining chicks get better. i think/hope she will drop off some info about the disease too so i know what i am going up against and can research it some more.


I guess i wont have to boycott her business now that SHE IS TRYING to make things right.

Makes me happy knowing that someone knows whats wrong with them and that there is something i can do to help them now....


the only issue is she did tell me it is transferable to other birds.... now that's a whole different problem if thats to happen to my parrots.


FINGERS CROSSED they all make it.... at least they all came out of the coop this morning alive. thats always a good start.

So you bought the chicks from a middleman, um middlewoman, or rather middleperson.

Does she buy them from the man who sells them from off the back of a truck? There is a man that is a travelling chook sales person and does so.

I hope she came good with the medication and that your chooks get better and you have many eggs from them.

Maybe you can wear surgical gloves when handling the chicks and always wash your hands well before handling the parrots.