[sam4530s]

hi i am new to the site so a big Hello to every1.

i have found 4 dead chickens in my coop .
no sign of injury , but my cock has 1 eye swollen up and his comb is bent over to one side and i looks like he got greasy neck feathers . he cant crow anymore and has loss of energy .

 any ideas people

[Carla]

Oh dear Is he making any rattling sounds when breathing, is his eye 'bubbly' or is there any other symptoms. Its unusual for multilpe chickens to die instantly, have they been poorly? Swollen eyes can mean mycoplasma, which will spread through your flock and kill them all if untreaded, but you usually have other syptoms and death takes a few days as the illness progresses??

[reidi]

you could have had a fox visit you, or the fire works could have cause them to have a heart attack due to noise and flashing this is stressfull to them.

the swollen eye could be a secondry infection from grit ect scratching the eye.  Was this like it before you lost the other birds?  if so they may not be related. I know sawdust can also cause the eye to swell and will need washing out.

hope this helps

Andy

[Chookiechook]

Swollen eye and greasy (its actually teary discharge) on the neck points to Myco..... I wonder if your other hens had it without you noticing  

There are usually severe symptoms before death though

[asd1]

Yep I would say myco, I recently bought some hens with a greasy appearance (and they smelt) turns out they had myco ( which i had guessed by this point) and passed it on to the rest of my flock. You need some antibiotics fast it sounds you have learnt the hard way

[joyfull]

also if it proves to be myco then never breed from these birds as the young will also have it  .

[sam4530s]

thanks for all the advice people , sounds like you all thinking the same thing . i,v had 4 bantams for about 3 years , then my friend asked me if i wanted 3 larger chickens from the local school as the kids was scared of them , after about 2 weeks i found 3 dead bantams and put it down to the big sussex hens not letting them eat as they was really skinny when i examined . so i re homed them and got some new bantams 1 died within 3 days and then yesterday i found another one dead . i have heard them sneezing and i see another one gasping for air like it was yauning or trying to crow . i hate to see them like this.

and yes his eye has bubbles in it . also has muck on his beak , looks like the greasy marks on his kneck are from the weaping eye .
what is the best way to treat them

[joyfull]

you can never cure them from myco as once they have it they have it for life. You have 2 options:-
1) Sadly the best way is to cull the lot, give your set up a good clean and wait a short while before starting afresh.
2) Take them to a vet who understands poultry - if they don't them go armed with as many details about mycoplasma as you can. Get enough of a broad spectrum antibiotic such as Aureomycin, Denagard, Tylan, Baytril etc and treat them all. There are hundreds of different antibiotics the vet can use and if one or even a combination of two doesn't work then change over onto another one.

Never ever breed from these birds in the future.

If in the future you wish to introduce new birds then make sure you have them in quarantine for a few weeks just in case they are carrying an illness.

Sorry if I sound harsh as I know you have had an awful time recently with your birds but there really is no other way but to follow one of the above options 

[bantam novice]

Oh Sam what a horrible thing to have to go through.   
I would have to agree with the advice you have been getting here.  Good luck whatever you decide and keep us posted.