Diseases and Treatments

Serious illness is unlikely in a backyard flock, especially if you vaccinate the chickens. All the same, it’s good to be aware of them in case you ever are wondering, is my chicken sick? Diseases can spread from wild birds and pests, so keep an eye out during your daily health checks for the symptoms listed below.

• Avian Pox/Fowl Pox:
  Symptoms: White spots on skin; combs turn into scabby sores; white membrane and ulcers in mouth, on trachea; laying stops; all ages affected.
  How contracted: Viral disease; mosquitoes, other chickens with pox and contaminated surfaces.
  Treatment: Supportive care, warm dry quarters, soft food; many birds with good care will survive.
  Vaccine available: Yes; recovered birds are immune and do not carry the disease.
• Botulism:
  Symptoms: Tremors quickly progressing to paralysis of body, including breathing; feathers pull out easily; death in a few hours.
  How contracted: Caused by a bacterial byproduct and by eating or drinking botulism-infected food or water
  Treatment: Antitoxin available from vet but expensive. If found early try 1 teaspoon Epsom salts dissolved in 1 ounce warm water dripped into crop several times a day.
  Vaccine available: None; locate and remove source, usually decaying carcass, meat near water, or insects that fed on the meat or the water the carcass is in.
• Fowl Cholera:
  Symptoms: Usually birds over 4 months — greenish yellow diarrhea; breathing difficulty; swollen joints; darkened head and wattles; often quick death. Does not infect humans.
  How contracted: Bacterial disease; wild birds, raccoons, opossums, rats, can carry. Also transmitted bird to bird and on contaminated soil, equipment, shoes, clothing contaminated water and food.
  Treatment: None — destroy all infected birds if recovery occurs the bird will be a carrier
  Vaccine available: Yes, but only your state Department of Agriculture can administer it.
• Infectious Bronchitis:
  Symptoms: Coughing; sneezing; watery discharge from nose and eyes; hens stop laying.
  How contracted: Viral disease; highly contagious; spreads through air, contact, and contaminated surfaces.
  Treatment: Supportive care; 50 percent mortality in chicks under 6 weeks.
  Vaccine available: Yes. Give to hens before 15 weeks of age because vaccination will cause laying to stop.
• Infectious Coryza:
  Symptoms: Swollen heads, combs, and wattles; eyes swollen shut; sticky discharge from nose and eyes; moist area under wings; laying stops.
  How contracted: Bacterial disease; transmitted through carrier birds, contaminated surfaces, and drinking water.
  Treatment: Birds should be destroyed as they remain carriers for life.
  Vaccine available: None.
• Mareks Disease:
  Symptoms: Affects birds under 20 weeks primarily; causes tumors externally and internally; paralysis; iris of eye turns gray, doesn’t react to light
  How contracted: Viral disease; very contagious; contracted by inhaling shed skin cells or feather dust from other infected birds.
  Treatment: None; high death rate and any survivors are carriers.
  Vaccine available: Yes, given to day old chicks.
• Moniliasis (Thrush):
  Symptoms: White cheesy substance in crop; ruffled feathers; droopy looking; poor laying; white crusty vent area; inflamed vent area; increased appetite
  How contracted: Fungal disease; contracted through moldy feed and water and surfaces contaminated by infected birds. Often occurs after antibiotic treatment for other reasons.
  Treatment: Yes. Ask a vet for Nystatin or other antifungal medication. Remove moldy feed and disinfect water containers.
  Vaccine available: No.
• Mycoplasmosis/CRD/Air Sac Disease:
  Symptoms: Mild form — weakness and poor laying. Acute form — breathing problems, coughing, sneezing, swollen infected joints, death
  How contracted: Mycoplasma disease; contracted through other birds (wild birds carry it); can transmit through egg to chick from infected hen.
  Treatment: Antibiotics may save birds — see a vet.
  Vaccine available: Yes.
• Newcastle Disease:
  Symptoms: Wheezing, breathing difficulty, nasal discharge, cloudy eyes, laying stops, paralysis of legs, wings, twisted heads, necks
  How contracted: Viral disease; highly contagious; contracted through infected chickens and wild birds and is also carried on shoes, clothes, and surfaces.
  Treatment: None. Birds under 6 months usually die; older birds can recover. Recovered birds are not carriers.
  Vaccine available: Yes, but the U.S. is working to eradicate the disease all together.
• Omphalitis (Mushy Chick):
  Symptoms: Newly hatched chicks — enlarged, bluish, inflamed naval area, bad smell, drowsy, weak chicks
  How contracted: Bacterial infection of naval from unclean surfaces or chicks with weak immune systems. Can spread from chick to chick on contaminated surfaces.
  Treatment: Antibiotics and clean housing sometimes help, but most chicks will die. Remove healthy chicks immediately to clean quarters.
  Vaccine available: None. Use caution handling — staph and strep that cause this disease may infect humans.
• Pullorum:
  Symptoms: Chicks are inactive, may have white diarrhea with pasted rear ends, breathing difficulty, or die without symptoms. Older birds — coughing, sneezing, poor laying.
  How contracted: Viral disease; contracted through carrier birds and contaminated surfaces, clothing, and shoes.
  Treatment: Destroy all infected birds — birds that recover are carriers. Most chicks infected will die.
  Vaccine available: No vaccine, but there is a blood test to find carriers. While the U.S. is trying to eradicate this disease, buy chickens from Pullorum-negative flocks only.

  
  
  

  Internal Parasites.

  
  

  
  

  If you plan to raise chickens, you must be ready to encounter parasites. Even a city chicken coop can be invaded. Internal parasites — in particular worms and coccidiosis — are especially problematic, so it’s important to understand how chickens are affected by parasites and how to treat parasites.

  Treating worms in chickens

  Chickens are most often affected by roundwords, tapeworms, and gapeworms. Chickens that have worms may look unhealthy and thin. They may gain weight slowly even though they eat more feed than chickens without worms, and they may lay fewer eggs. Many species of worms, however, can live in chickens and not cause any problems. If you notice worms or your chickens don’t seem to be as healthy as they could be, it may be time to check for worms and treat if necessary.

  Make a habit of checking out chicken droppings because some worms are visible in droppings. Even if the worms aren’t visible, a veterinarian can examine the droppings in a lab. She looks for worm eggs or actual worms. Sometimes these lab tests aren’t successful, because worm eggs weren’t being produced when the sample was collected.

  Generally, treatment for chicken worms consists of worming the entire flock. Some people prefer to worm chickens at least twice a year as a precaution, even if they don’t see worms or symptoms. It doesn’t hurt to worm as a preventive measure if you follow the directions for the worm medication. However, we don’t believe that home flocks need to be wormed as a precaution if they appear healthy and you don’t see worms in the droppings.

  If you worm meat chicks, you need to follow label directions about how long to keep the birds before they can be butchered for eating; you don’t want pesticide residues to remain in the meat.

  Treating cocciodosis in chickens

  Coccidia are most often a problem in young, growing birds, but occasionally Coccidia can cause problems with older birds, especially if they get bacterial diseases such as ulcerative colitis. Birds under 3 weeks seldom show symptoms. Slightly older chicks from 3 weeks to 30 weeks may have bloody diarrhea, anemia, pale skin color, listlessness, poor appetite, or dehydration. Young birds with heavy infestations of Coccidia often die.

  Chickens get Coccidia by ingesting oocysts, which are immature Coccidia that are passed in fecal matter. The oocysts contaminate feed, litter, and soil and can last for a year in the environment. They can be spread by shoes, clothing, equipment, wild birds, pests like rats, and infected chickens.

  Good treatments for coccidiosis are available. Feeding baby chicks a starter feed medicated with coccidiostats (which kill Coccidia) is advisable for the first month. You also can put certain medications into the chickens’ drinking water. Amprolium and Decoquinate are commonly available coccidiostats. If older birds seem to be infected, you can treat them with these medications as well.

  
  

  
  

  External Parasites.
  
  
  

  Chicken parasites are a given in most backyard coops. External parasites —lice, mites, fowl ticks and chiggers — are the creepy-crawlies found on the outside of the chicken, so common that earlier poultry tenders didn’t even bother treating chickens for them. That said, these pests can cause anemia, damaged feathers, weight problems, poor laying, or — in young birds — death.

  Signs of external parasites include:

  • Seeing them crawling on the chickens or in the coop
  • Being bitten by them yourself
  • Noticing chickens with broken, chewed-looking feathers and reddened skin patches
  • Seeing chickens doing a lot of scratching and picking at themselves
  • A drop in egg production
  • Anemia with pale combs and wattles
  • A fluffed-up or sick appearance

  Help your confined chickens keep parasites away by giving them a large, deep box of sand to wallow in. Dust smothers and dislodges the parasite and cleans the body of oils, dust, and debris that some parasites feed on. Free-range chickens make their own wallows. Also, don’t let wild birds nest or roost in chicken shelters.

  Many people today are still willing to let nature call the shots, and they don’t worry about treating their chickens for parasites. If your chickens are acting healthy and producing as you want them to, you may decide to not to treat them for parasites.

  For those with small flocks that are handled frequently and that are confined at least part of the time, parasites may be unacceptable. Most external parasites that affect birds don’t live on humans, but a few will take a bite out of you if they get on you. You don’t want parasites on you, and you may want your chickens to be as comfortable and healthy as possible. You also may want optimum production. These are good reasons to choose to treat your birds for parasites.

  Chicken lice

  Lice are long, narrow, tiny insects that move quickly when you part a chicken’s feathers. The eggs are small dots glued to feathers. When your chicken has a heavy infestation, you can see the lice scurrying around on the bird. Unlike human lice, chicken lice don’t feed on blood; they eat feathers or shedding skin cells. There are head lice, body lice, and lice that live on feather shafts.

  To control lice you have to treat the birds directly — treating the environment doesn’t work. Permethrin, natural pyrethrum, and carbaryl dust are effective insecticides for lice, but you must consult a vet for the correct way to use them on chickens.

  Chicken mites    

  

  Mites are very tiny rounded insects that can be seen only through a microscope and that will also bite humans. The most common mites in backyard coops are Northern Fowl mite, Common Chicken mite, Scaly Leg mite. Some types of mites feed at night on the birds and then hide in cracks of the environment during the day; others stay on the birds. They can cause anemia, decreased egg-laying, and damage to skin and feathers. Some types even invade the lungs and other organs. Heavy mite populations can cause death.

  Both the birds and the premises need to be treated for mites. Permithrin and several other good treatments exist.

  A good treatment for Scaly Leg mites is petroleum jelly, linseed oil, or mineral oil applied liberally to the legs; these products smother the mites. Ask a poultry expert or vet for other treatment recommendations, because many good treatments aren’t registered for use with chickens.

  Fowl tick and chickens

  Ticks cause anemia, weight loss, decreased egg production, and general weakness in chickens. In the South, where this type of tick is most common, it can cause serious illness and even death in chickens. If you suspect ticks, go out and get a chicken several hours after dark and examine the skin closely in a good light. When filled with blood after their nightly meal, they’re large enough to see easily.

  Ticks are difficult to control. You don’t treat the chicken; you treat its surroundings. This means spraying housing and treating pasture areas and trimming or removing weeds and debris around poultry housing. Ask a vet for recommendations on tick control products.

  Chickens and chiggers

  Chiggers are nasty little bugs that don’t mind feeding on humans as well as chickens. Chickens get chiggers when they roam grassy areas or come into contact with hay or straw that’s infested with them. Chiggers cause great distress to chickens. They may appear ill and have no interest in eating or drinking. Their feathers appear fluffed up, and they scratch their skin a lot. Young birds sometimes die from heavy infestations.

  The control of chiggers is the same as with ticks: You treat the environment. In addition, any hay or straw stored close to chickens may need to be moved or destroyed.

  Don’t try to eliminate parasites by spraying your housing with old-time remedies like kerosene or fuel oil. These products are environmental pollutants that cause more harm than good, and using them this way is illegal. They also can have toxic effects on your birds because they can be absorbed into your bird’s skin.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  All information extracted from Raising Chickens For Dummies and was written by Kimberly Willis and Rob Ludlow