Flock Health - Raising Poultry - page 390

An enlarged, ulcerated liver indicates blackhead.
Maintenance
You can no longer legally purchase medication in the United States for blackhead con-
trol. The easiest way to prevent blackhead is to raise chickens and turkeys on separ-
ate ground. It's a wise raiser who does so, because once the birds contract the disease,
there's no stopping the process. You can save some of your losses if you quickly butcher
all the birds as soon as you start seeing the sulfur-yellow droppings. The meat is still
edible if caught soon enough and the internal organs are not rotting from the infection,
but don't eat the liver. You can still give it to animals, but it won't look too appetizing.
Blackhead is catastrophic to poultry raisers who wish to raise turkeys and chickens
together. More research is needed to explore possible cures for this devastating illness,
which can sometimes take an entire flock of turkeys if conditions are favorable for its
development. There may be a plant or herb that can help control blackhead, a disease
that makes it virtually impossible to raise turkeys if you have chickens on the farm.
Coccidiosis
The most common chicken disease is coccidiosis. Although it can occur in turkeys and
guineas, incidence is rare, and waterfowl never seem to have a problem with it. This is
the disease you'll definitely become acquainted with if you are using a nonmedicated
feed or do not add medication to your chick water.
Coccidiosis is caused by a simple little protozoa — single-celled creatures that live
in or near water — that gets into a chick's water and intestines, where it destroys the
lining of the bird's cecal pouches. It causes the chicken to bleed to death internally.
Coccidiosis shows up at about four to five weeks of age and continues through the
“teen years” of twelve to fifteen weeks. It tends to hit them at that rapid-growth stage of
their life; however, the time when it appears in a chicken's life depends upon the breed's
strain and your maintenance and treatment decisions.
Symptoms
Everything is going along smoothly and all of a sudden your four- to six-week-old
chicks start to die rather quickly. Everywhere you look, you see a few large blood-clot-
type globs on the litter. These are the most common indications that coccidiosis has hit
your flock.
As a proactive measure, I check my flock for coccidiosis symptoms in the morning
and at night. When I notice birds have become chilled and are clustering around the heat