It is now early spring, when outdoor temperatures fluctuate widely, and the season is also characteristically windy around the Spring Festival. As a result, respiratory diseases are prevalent at this time of year, and airsacculitis is particularly difficult to treat among them. In flocks of chickens with acute airsacculitis, many people have used highly sensitive, extremely highly sensitive airsacculitis medications, but in the end they still failed to control mortality. Why is this?
So today, let’s discuss the mechanisms by which airsacculitis causes death. By helping everyone understand how airsacculitis leads to the death of chickens, and combining this with the pharmacology of the medications, we aim to offer better treatment and medication considerations.
Our study of chickens that died after developing airsacculitis found three causes of death. The first is death caused by airsacculitis occurring alongside or followed by enterotoxemia syndrome. In such cases, airsacculitis medication used in combination with medication for treating enterotoxemia syndrome that contains mequindox can provide effective treatment. We will not discuss this in depth for now!
The second is “infectious death” caused by severe infectious pathogens such as bacteria, mycoplasma, and viruses, also known as acute septicemia. For deaths caused by airsacculitis in such cases, select highly effective antibacterial and antimycoplasmal drugs with high or extremely high sensitivity; or, when necessary, use highly effective drugs against influenza and infectious bronchitis viruses. Such cause-directed treatment can eliminate the cause of the disease and thereby effectively control mortality.
Besides the two types we discussed above, there is another type: death caused by respiratory acidosis. Death caused by this form of airsacculitis in chickens occurs because affected chickens have difficulty breathing. Airsacculitis causes reduced respiratory function, or obstructed and restricted airflow, and inflammation of the respiratory system, resulting in a substantial decline in gas-exchange efficiency, among other effects. As a result, the large amount of carbon dioxide produced by the body cannot be expelled in time.
Carbon dioxide accumulates in the body. When it exceeds the body's capacity for self-regulation of its body fluids, it enters fluids such as lymph, interstitial fluid, and blood. Normally, the pH of these body fluids is weakly alkaline. However, when large and increasing amounts of carbon dioxide enter them, the carbon dioxide dissolves in water to form carbonic acid, as anyone who has studied chemistry knows.
The carbon dioxide entering the various body fluids will therefore greatly lower their pH, turning weakly alkaline body fluids into alkaline body fluids!
This will severely impair the function of the body's various tissues and organs. In the case of blood made acidic by carbon dioxide, its oxygen-carrying capacity will decrease substantially. Insufficient oxygen supply to various tissues and organs will cause oxygen deprivation and loss of function, ultimately resulting in the chickens' death. As for heart function, alkaline conditions can also inhibit the heart, and insufficient blood supply can lead to the death of tissues, organs, and cells.
These are just a few examples we have given. In fact, deaths caused by severe respiratory insufficiency and impairment are even more deceptive. When you perform a necropsy on a dead chicken, you may find signs of various bacterial infections in the internal organs, but these have already been thoroughly cleared by treatment for highly sensitive or extremely highly sensitive airsacculitis. Even when samples are collected from the internal organs and tissues of such a dead chicken, whose systems appear clear, laboratory tests may find no trace of bacteria or mycoplasma.
But chickens keep dying. What exactly is going on? Many people are completely baffled and cannot figure out what is causing the chickens to die, no matter how hard they rack their brains. If you do not know what is causing the deaths, you also do not know how best to use medication—is that not the case? In fact, the problem often lies here: although the pathogens have been cleared, respiratory function, gas-exchange efficiency, and oxygen-supply capacity have not recovered!
Deaths at this point are not pathogen-related, much less caused by pathogens. So antibacterial, antimycoplasmal, and antiviral drugs—all drugs used to combat pathogens—are ineffective! It is not that these drugs are bad; rather, the deaths attributed to airsacculitis are not caused by these pathogens. They result from inadequate respiratory movement, gas exchange, and oxygen-supply capacity in the chickens, leading to poor recovery and death.
At this point, when treating dead chickens with medication for airsacculitis—the so-called “airsacculitis” disease—you cannot simply rely on highly sensitive or extremely highly sensitive airsacculitis medication and call it a day! If you do not control the direct deaths caused by respiratory acidosis and use only highly sensitive or extremely highly sensitive antibacterial and antimycoplasmal drugs, you can only say that you have eliminated the causes of respiratory depression and respiratory acidosis.
For chickens that have not yet died but have begun to develop respiratory distress syndrome due to airsacculitis, if they do not receive timely and appropriate treatment, respiratory acidosis will cause ongoing chicken deaths! Although the factors causing infection by various pathogens have already been eliminated from the body by this point, the underlying damage left by the disease has not been corrected, and chickens continue to die!
At this point, using an appropriate amount of sodium bicarbonate compound potassium can be an economical, fast-acting remedy to “stop ongoing chicken deaths after recovery from airsacculitis.” In addition to this respiratory acidosis, respiratory alkalosis can also cause many chicken deaths. It is another complication of airsacculitis in chickens that is difficult to detect and recognize. This can also cause ongoing, continuous chicken deaths. For this alkalosis, you can use ammonium chloride together with compound potassium.
Alternatively, you can use acidic medications directly, such as amprolium sulfate, colistin sulfate, spectinomycin hydrochloride, and neomycin hydrochloride, among others. When absorbed into the body, they can provide acidic conditions while exerting antibacterial effects, thereby neutralizing excess alkaline ions in the body. The cheapest options here are probably the “organic acids” provided by metronidazole, some antipyretics, and similar products. Fortunately, this situation is uncommon!