[sharper35]

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

[joyfull]

it sounds like your girls have mycoplasma and sadly they will have this for life. the only way to manage this is with a broad spectrum antibiotic and to treat them all with it (which sadly will mean chucking the eggs away when they are on the antibiotics). You may find over time that if it keeps reoccurring you will have to change antibiotics to stop their bodies becoming immune to the one you are using.
It can reoccur when they go into a moult, if you introduce other hens or at anytime when they get stressed.
Sadly because of the increase in chicken keeping some breeders are not very careful and breed from hens that have this regardless and I would guess this is the case with yours 

[sharper35]

I figured it was something like Mycoplasma, vet said some form of transit disease or respiratory infection and no real way to know unless we did lots of expensive testing.  He did recommend a necroscopy if any die.

My concern is that they have already just had a course of antibiotics (3/4 weeks ago) and to do it all over again could get expensive (£45 last time for all 4 including examinations) if I have to repeat every 4/5 weeks.   I love my chickens but that is not something I can afford to keep doing, they are there predominantly for eggs and it will end up being expensive eggs and not many if I have to chuck them for a few weeks.   That is why I am hoping I can find a way to manage the condition without the repeated use of antibiotics.  Has anyone been successful in treating chickens naturally for this kind of condition?

Sarah

[joyfull]

as it cropped up so soon after the last case I would say give them a 10 day course (it may not have completely gone from the last time) just to make sure then try to keep them as stress free as possible. I have had 1 hen with it and she suffered the one bout and never again (tests were done to prove what it was) so it is possible to control it.