sneezing and snotty chickens

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wcah

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sneezing and snotty chickens
« on: May 25, 2012, 22:46 »
MY little flock of 6 hens and a rooster started sneezing 3 weeks ago and i hear garlic was good for this and to a clove into there drinking water. Still no improvment. The local farm supplies said to worm them, so did that and still no imporovment. They are all eating well, and laying ok averaging 5 to 6 eggs a day, they are all waking around (free range) and scratching around like they should. But they have dry snot around there nostrals, and do like a sneezing sound now and again, the sneezing is worse at nigt when i check on them to lock them up. What should i do next? Or should i just let them work it out of there system?

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joyfull

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Re: sneezing and snotty chickens
« Reply #1 on: May 26, 2012, 07:46 »
I would get them to a vet to see if it is a respiratory infection. They may need antibiotics.
You say they are worse at night - what bedding do they have in their coop?
Staffies are softer than you think.

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wcah

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Re: sneezing and snotty chickens
« Reply #2 on: May 26, 2012, 08:32 »
I would get them to a vet to see if it is a respiratory infection. They may need antibiotics.
You say they are worse at night - what bedding do they have in their coop?

They live on straw and have straw in there nest boxes. Ill ring around today and see if any vets around here del with chickens.

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joyfull

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Re: sneezing and snotty chickens
« Reply #3 on: May 26, 2012, 20:19 »
hope you found a vet - really they shouldn't be on straw.

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wcah

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Re: sneezing and snotty chickens
« Reply #4 on: May 27, 2012, 13:44 »
I havent yet forund a vet due to the weekend, been looking on the internet for a chicken vet in the north shropshire area but no joy so its just a case of keep ringing the vets in the area. Sadley 1 looked very sad yesterday wings down and huddled, and she died in the afternoon :(. Woke up this morning and 1 of my ducks was very lathargic in its coop, she waddled outside. and with in 20mins shes was dead  :( i dont know if its linked but the duck didnt have any snot. All the other chickens are still quite happy doing chicken things. Its been a long and slow weekend iv never wanted a weekend to go quick before.
Why not bed them on straw? they have straw in there nestboxes too. My pearents did all there lives and they didnt have any probs. What would you sugest?

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wcah

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Re: sneezing and snotty chickens
« Reply #5 on: May 28, 2012, 22:04 »
Today i took 3 of my flock to the vets to get this snotty nose and cough sorted as i had 1 die on Sunday. Now i was told it probable Mycoplasma and she injected the 3 hens and gave me the injections to do the rest. I did get a bit confused as i told her i had 3 chicks and she said you cart give then tylan as they are too young, i asked about medicated chick crumbs and she said that you can't get that. so what are the medicated chick crumbs for? Also she said that if i get new stock i need to get more Tylan and inject them as my original flock will always have this and spread it and it can reoccur.

Am i wrong in thinking that it would be easier and safer to cull all the flock and start again? I know it seem harsh but iv got 12 bantam eggs in the incubator now and next month I'm hoping to get 20 turkey eggs ready for the Christmas trade. I'm totally con fussed and relay sad about this and don't know the best way of dealing with it. Am i making a mountain out of a mole hill as they say

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Casey76

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Re: sneezing and snotty chickens
« Reply #6 on: May 29, 2012, 10:43 »
Sorry to hear that you have myco in your flock.

Medicated chick crumbs are for the prevention of coccidiosis, which is an intestinal infection by a parasite, and is often fatal to chicks under 8 weeks in less than 24 hours.  After eight weeks, they have normally built up a bit of resistance so that a cocci infection doesn't bother them so much.

How old are your chicks?  You will need to keep them completely quarantined from your flock, and ideally they should never come into contact with the adults - ever.  Once you have myco in your flock it is there forever.  The mycoplasma infection itself isn't a very bad infection, but it does make the hens extremely susceptible to secondary bacterial infections (which is where the snotty beaks come in).  If the hens recover from one respiratory infection, the mycoplasma infection remains latent until the bird is stressed (gets hot, gets cold, moves house, is botheres by a predator etc...) and then it flares up, leading to another round of respiratory infections etc.

The old fashioned way of treating this was to cull the entire flock, rest the land, and then restock.  If you want to go down this route, I would suggest you rest the land where the current affected adults are for at least 3 months, and be generous in your applications of Stalosan F for the ground, and virkon for the coops.

In my personal opinion (and it is just my opinion), although heartbreaking, it is better to cull the flock and restock, because if you have myco, you should really maintain a closed flock, otherwise you will just infect any new birds introduced.  With backyard flocks, where hens are more pets than livestock, emotions come into it far more than if they are commercial flocks... and it is one of the reasons for a huge increase in myco cases acorss the country.



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