Health on the range: worms, coccidiosis, predators, and when to call the veterinarian

This lesson is part of Free-range poultry and festive markets specialisation. It opens to every registered student, from free registration. Levels 1 to 5 and the tracks remain readable by everyone.

A chicken that goes out on a range for two months swallows soil, insects, earthworms and puddle water; it meets wild birds, sometimes sleeps next to a rat hole and runs from a bird of prey. None of this happens to a white broiler shut in for six weeks. Health on the range is therefore a trade of its own: describing the enemies, seeing them coming in the register and the droppings before they damage the flock, and knowing at which precise moment to pick up the phone for the veterinarian of the area. This lesson gives no care and no product: that is not the farmer's role.

• ✓Describe the worms of the free-range chicken, their cycle, their signs and the actions that break the cycle
• ✓Recognise coccidiosis, understand why damp soil favours it and prevent it through management
• ✓Spot external parasites, heat disorders and the aftermath of predator attacks
• ✓Apply the grid of thresholds for calling the veterinarian and prepare the visit

1. Why health changes when the chickens go out
2. Worms: describe, prevent, watch
3. Coccidiosis: the disease of damp soil
4. External parasites, heat and other troubles of the range
5. The sick bay and the evening action
6. When to call the veterinarian: the grid
7. Going further

• •Three sides of a disease: animal, agent, environment; on the range, the farmer acts on the environment and surveillance; we describe, we prevent, we watch, we call, we do not give care.
• •Worms (roundworms, heterakis, capillaria, tapeworms): cycle through the soil in 2 to 3 weeks, signs = chickens that eat and no longer grow, paleness, soft droppings; prevention = area, rotation, drainage, clean water; droppings examination by the veterinarian.
• •Coccidiosis: oocysts infective in 1 to 2 days in damp, warm soil or litter; liquid brownish-red or bloody droppings, prostrate chickens, drop in water; prevention = dry litter, 5 to 6 per m², gravel, no outing in the mud.
• •External parasites (lice, fleas, red mites, scaly leg), heat stroke, pecking, aftermath of predators: sand bath, smooth perches, shade, cool water, sick bay the same evening.
• •Calling grid for 1,000 chickens: more than 3 deaths per day two days in a row, 10% drop in water, blood in the droppings, 10% of chickens prostrate, nervous signs immediately; visit prepared with register, live sick birds, dead kept cool and droppings.