8 Common Chicken Diseases: Prevention and Treatment Guide

Cannibalism in chickens involves them pecking at themselves or each other, causing harm.

Signs of cannibalism: Pecking at the vent, feathers, toes, and head. Vent pecking often occurs in newly hatched chicks with prolapsed cloaca. Feather pecking results from confinement, lack of exercise, and poor nutrition, leading to dark wounds. Toe pecking happens in chicks due to hunger and lack of food. Head pecking is seen around the comb and when wounds are further pecked by others.

Main causes: Pellet feed, high corn content in feed, lack of feeding troughs, long fasting periods, insufficient nesting areas, and too bright nesting locations. Other causes include overcrowded coops, nutritional deficiencies, and parasites like mites, lice, and ticks.

Solutions include: Improving feed quality, coop conditions, and trimming beaks for larger flocks. Apply methylene blue to wounds rather than red medicine. Periodically mix water or feed with TYVALMIX, 39-VITA-AMIN, SORBITOL COMPLEX, DOXY 5% PREMIX, LACTOMAR to address mineral and vitamin deficiencies, preventing pecking behavior.

Manifestations include: chronic, acute, and hyperacute forms. Chronic: diarrhea, white watery stools, trembling, sporadic convulsions, twisted neck, body leaning. Death from starvation and exhaustion within 2-3 days. Acute: Loss of appetite, fluffed-up appearance, cold feet, sneezing, wheezing, white-red mucous discharge, excessive thirst, swollen crop filled with fluid or gas, drooling mucous strands, stretching neck to breathe, loud clucking, initial constipation followed by white or greenish diarrhea (with foam or blood). High fever, purple comb, rapid death. Survivors may have neurological issues, twisted necks, circling, inaccurate pecking.

Main cause: Caused by the Paramixovirus, survives in the coop for 13-30 days, highly contagious. Spreads via air, food, water, and equipment. Incubation period of 2-14 days, 90% mortality rate.

Prevention and control: No cure, only prevention. Isolate affected chickens immediately. Vaccinate healthy chickens with Lasota for chicks under 1 month, and Newcastle vaccine strain I for older chickens. No signs of death within a week indicates control. Maintain clean coops and high nutrition quality.

Chicken pox, a viral infection common in free-range chickens, presents in two forms: dry and wet. Dry form shows scaly pustules on featherless skin, turning purple when mature. Wet form involves inflammatory red swellings that evolve into thick, fake membranes, making eating difficult. Causes include blindness, diarrhea, pneumonia, reduced growth, and increased mortality. The virus, part of the pox virus group, survives up to 56 days and transmits via insect bites.

Prevention involves vaccinating chicks and adult chickens with Central Veterinary Medicine Company No.1 and 2's fowl pox vaccine at 7 or 14 days, and again at 112 days old. For advanced cases, apply methylene blue or iodine alcohol directly. Isolate sick chickens immediately and maintain clean, well-ventilated coops with disinfection.

Symptoms in chickens: All ages susceptible, most common at 2-3 weeks. Adults often develop chronic coccidiosis. Initial signs include loss of appetite, excessive thirst, ruffled feathers, unsteady movement. Diarrhea starts green then turns brown with blood, leading to paralysis in late stages. Acute cases can result in death within 2-7 days, recovery is slow.

Cause: Warm, humid climate favors Eimeria parasites, damaging the intestinal lining, especially in free-range chickens.

Prevention and treatment: Maintain dry, clean coops, use lime and 2% formaldehyde or 3% cresyl for disinfection. Treat sick chickens with EsB3, Coccistop-2000, Rigecoccin, Furazolidon, Avicoc, Stenorol as per instructions; Rigecoccin and Furazolidon can be mixed with feed until recovery.

Symptoms of worm infestation: Stunted growth, ruffled feathers, anemia, pale combs and wattles, reduced egg production. Visible worms or segments in feces indicate infestation. Examination of suspect chickens through necropsy can confirm the presence of worms.

Cause: Worms and parasites are common, thriving in the intestines, leading to malnutrition, weakness, and intestinal damage.

Prevention and treatment: Maintain clean feed and water, dry and elevated coops, apply insecticides for controlling insects and larval stages with copper sulfate, dipterex. Treat roundworms with Piperazine or mix in feed. Use Phenothiazine for threadworms, and Arecoline or Bromosalaxilamit for tapeworms.

Symptoms in chicks include: lethargy, limited movement, half-closed eyes, foul-smelling diarrhea with white foam, sticky feces. In adults: diarrhea, sticky droppings, retracted combs, reduced egg production, and deformed eggs. Additionally, symptoms like fever, prostration, thirst, purplish combs, and greenish diarrhea may occur. Examination reveals liver scarring with necrotic spots, inflamed ovaries, and numerous atrophied, discolored eggs.

Causes: Fowl typhoid, a contagious disease spread by Salmonella bacteria, primarily affects adult chickens. Transmission occurs vertically from mother to chick or horizontally through fecal contamination of food or water.

Prevention and treatment: Maintain cleanliness in coops with veterinary sanitary measures. Regularly screen breeding flocks for infection using the agglutination test and eliminate infected hens. Remove symptomatic hens immediately in household settings. For treatment, use electrolytes like Soramin, Livercin, antibiotics like Chloramphenicol, Tetracycline orally, or Furazolidon mixed with feed.

Signs of poisoning in chickens: poor appetite, ruffled feathers, significant drop in egg production, poor hatchability. Severe poisoning leads to rapid death. Symptoms include swollen liver with hemorrhagic spots, grey coloration, and kidney damage with bleeding.

Causes of poisoning: Salt poisoning, chemical toxins, and aflatoxin mold. Salt poisoning causes excessive drinking, subcutaneous water accumulation, paralysis, and possibly joint swelling. Chemical poisoning results in excessive thirst, and sometimes death occurs before symptoms appear, with a chemical smell present upon examination. Entire flocks consuming the same contaminated feed exhibit symptoms and face similar mortality risks.

Prevention and treatment: Monitor chicken feed daily, replacing any suspect feed immediately. Ensure a diet of high-quality, nutritious feed for healthy nutrition.

Signs of E.coli blood infection: Chickens show lethargy, loss of appetite, high fever, diarrhea, and white feces, which can be confused with other diseases like white diarrhea or typhoid. Affected chickens die scattered due to exhaustion and appear very thin at death. Examination reveals cloudiness and fibrin strands or yellowish exudate under the skin, in muscles, membranes, heart, liver, spleen, and air sacs.

Cause: The disease originates from Echericha coli bacteria prevalent in water sources. Infection occurs when these bacteria enter the chicken's body and thrive in the digestive tract, especially when the chicken's immunity is low or when there's an influence from another type of bacteria or virus, leading to rapid and severe outbreaks with high mortality rates.

Prevention and treatment: Maintain good veterinary hygiene to prevent infection. Ensure clean drinking water. Use disinfectant solutions, potassium permanganate, antibiotics for suspect water. For treatment, use Chloramphenicol 10%: 4ml per liter of water, Tetracycline: 400g per ton of feed. Supplement with comprehensive vitamins A, B.