Fluffed up chicks and bloody stools are never a good sign in your brooder . Coccidiosis in usually the culprit. Coccidiosis in Chickens is is caused by a protozoa. The chicken coccidia lives and infects various sites in the intestine and damages the intestinal lining. With a heavy infection birds loose weight, have diarrhoea, sometimes have red blood in the droppings and even death.
Chicken Coccidiosis is a very common protozoal disease of poultry and is caused by different species of coccidia, mostly in the Eimeria genera.
Coccidia have two main phases in their life cycle; one phase occurs outside the host and involves the development of the infective stages (oocysts), and the major phase which occurs within the host and involves massive multiplication and sexual reproduction.
Birds ingest a number of oocysts and become infected. The severity of the infection depends on the numbers that they are host to. At a low dose the immune systems responds to the challenge and deals with the infection. When birds ingest too many they can develop visible symptoms and if the disease is unchecked it can kill them.
COCCI TREATMENT
Treat urgently with a medication for Coccidiosis according to directions – even though this is a common disease it can be fatal (this depends on the damage done to the chicken by the oocyts).
Try to raise chicks on clean dry litter and avoid crowded or damp conditions. Make sure drinkers are not spilling water into the litter. Make sure water and feed is uncontaminated by droppings. Use medicated chick starter or grower. Ensure that chicks are warmly housed out of draughts.
- Treatments are firstly good hygiene and less exposure to the parasite
- If the birds are laying hens Cocciprol or Amprolium is a product that has no with-holding for laying birds – i.e. the eggs can still be eaten.
- A more effective drug is Toltazural (Coxi-Quell 25) . This is used at a dose rate of 3 ml to 1 litre of water for 2 days changing the water daily. It can NOT be used in egg layers as there will be a withholding period, (The eggs need to be discarded!)
- It is recommends ongoing treatments with Coxi-Quell 25 or an Amprolium based product when stock is you to help develop the flock immunity to coccidiosis. This will both treat and help maintain the ongoing immunity.
Evans Chickens sell anticoccidials chicken medications. (e.g. amprolium, Coxi-quell 25) treat or control coccidiosis. They are treated for 2-3 days consecutively. Treatment can repeated after 5 days to treat oocysts in the period between infection with a parasite and the demonstration of the disease. Antibiotics and vitamin supplementation may be given depending on severity of the disease and type of drugs used but you will need to contact your vet if you need to source antibotics.