Hi
I am very new to chicken keeping and back at the end of March I purchased 2 blue Maran's at a poultry auction (never again!) followed by 2 light sussex from a different auction. I was incredibly naive and not aware that buying from auctions is madness and likely to bring disease. They are all Point of Lay pullets and approximately 2 weeks after 1 of the Marans developed bubbly eyes, swollen sinuses and snotty discharge. I seperated her and over night she seemed to improve however I took her to the local chicken friendly vet and they gave her a type of oxytetracycline antiobiotic beginning with E. She got better almost immediately and then the other 3 went down with it a week or so later, all got taken to the vets and had the antibiotic, he mentioned one was particularly underweight and she was likely to be the one to die if any of them. They all got better although the thinner one did not develop her comb like the others have and since she has started laying she lays a soft/thin shell egg everyday. A few days ago one of the marans looked a little snotty and was head shaking but now seems to be ok after a dose of citracidal in the water for last few days. Today the thinner one is hunched up, layed a very soft egg and has bubbles coming out of her eyes again and snot in her beak. I am realising now that I jumped into chicken keeping without the research needed but I can only learn from that for the future. The problem I have is what to do now, I don't plan on breeding or bringing any new chickens in to what I can only assume in a permanently infectious flock. I would prefer not to cull as they are pet chickens that give us eggs. We have a huge population of wild pheasants in our garden as well as partridges and a peacock (all wild) so we can never keep the flock closed, the chickens could have gotten the infection from the pheasants in which case I am always likely to have this problem if I continue to keep chickens here.
Can anyone advise me on how to proceed? Can this type of disease be managed? ie keep them as healthy as possible and treat when symptoms appear? Does anyone have experience with the use of coilodal silver as an antibiotic in chickens?
Thanks for you help
Sarah