SERIOUSLY! My house is a chicken ER right now.... Respiratory illness has hit us!

Well, aside from my banty with the broken leg and her pen mate with some unknown leg issue (she was given to me with problems) AND my chicks I rescued yesterday with pasty butt, I now have 2, possibly 3 more with a respiratory problem, and one of them came out of a cage with 16 chicks in it. I have separated them and placed them in my sons bathroom in a chicken ICU with no drafts and a humidifier and some VetRx which is all i could find yesterday when I went to atwoods. Also after reading a lot on here I wasn't really sure that antibiotics would do much good.

Everyone is currently on Sav-A-Chick electrolyte & probiotics. I have no idea where this came from, or how it spread like it did as my chickens are all pretty well separated, unless I am the one who transmitted it from pen to pen. I have a hen that was completely fine sunday, I sat out in the coop with her and watched her lay an egg and her breathing was fine, then monday night she sounds like she has croup and is sneezing and wheezy. Other than the awful sounds she is making, there appear to be no other symptoms. HOWEVER all the reading I have done here has me thoroughly freaked out that we have some flock culling disease like MP or something scary. I am not going to cull my flock unless a disease does it for me because we have just barely gotten started again and I love all these babies!! Isn't MP usually accompanied by swollen heads etc? We really have no mucus discharge, eyes are clear, maybe a little droopy and sick looking, but no discharge.

I am trying really hard not to spread this to everyone else. What the heck can I do?? I have a cage full of babies that are hardly a week old. I probably shouldnt have done this, but I put the new babies in the pen with some older babies, all which I had purchased at feed stores and have been previously healthy. One of the older ones is the one that is now sick. I figure the others have already been exposed to it, but I might as well move the sick one.... should I disinfect that entire cage??? Or would it do any good at this point? I just don't even know where to begin other than by keeping the ones that are already sick as comfortable as possible.

Here are pics of the two that are currently sick. I usually pick up and hold and touch all my birds every day so I am assuming I am the one that has spread this?? They are all so far apart!! Really not showing any symptoms other than their wheezing & gasping for breath

Hello there!

Sounds like you're having a rough time at the moment

I'm just wondering why you think antibiotics wouldn't do much good?

A few years ago I purchased some chickens from a breeder that came with mycoplamsa, once or twice a year its rears its ugly head. Sometimes just one chicken shows signs, sometimes a few, it just depends on their immune system and any stress, changes etc they are going through. Sometimes the signs are just the odd sneeze or wheeze, sometimes lethargic, mucus, puffy eyes etc.

I have a girl who has been sneezing and wheezing for months but no other symptoms, I thought she had something else like a fungal infection, but both vets I have seen are sure it's just myco and we just need to find the right antibiotics to get rid of it.

In my experience when they are at the stage where they aren't eating they need antibiotics, they just get too poorly and exhausted.

Now I know my girls have mycoplasma I wont ever add anymore chickens to my flock, which is sad, but it's not fair to let more chickens suffer imo.

I would take your poorly girls to a vet and get them checked out.

Best of luck, I hope all your girls are feeling better soon

lilypad said:

Hello there!

Sounds like you're having a rough time at the moment

I'm just wondering why you think antibiotics wouldn't do much good?

A few years ago I purchased some chickens from a breeder that came with mycoplamsa, once or twice a year its rears its ugly head. Sometimes just one chicken shows signs, sometimes a few, it just depends on their immune system and any stress, changes etc they are going through. Sometimes the signs are just the odd sneeze or wheeze, sometimes lethargic, mucus, puffy eyes etc.

I have a girl who has been sneezing and wheezing for months but no other symptoms, I thought she had something else like a fungal infection, but both vets I have seen are sure it's just myco and we just need to find the right antibiotics to get rid of it.

In my experience when they are at the stage where they aren't eating they need antibiotics, they just get too poorly and exhausted.

Now I know my girls have mycoplasma I wont ever add anymore chickens to my flock, which is sad, but it's not fair to let more chickens suffer imo.

I would take your poorly girls to a vet and get them checked out.

Best of luck, I hope all your girls are feeling better soon

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply!!

I just didn't want to give them antibiotics if it is something that could be a virus, because antibiotics do no good against viruses, just their secondary infections and I'd rather not contribute to the antibiotic resistance issues that arise from over use of antibiotics if at all possible.

I do not know a good chicken vet around here anymore, we used to have one right down the road but she moved. And honestly I don't have the money right now to take everyone to the vet, at least not until I get paid next week. Everyone has been eating and drinking fairly well, but if they start going downhill I guess I will have to do something. I will see if I can make a few calls and find a vet that works with chickens.

I really have no idea where this came from. And everyone just seems so imperative that any upper respiratory issues are automatically mycoplasma that it has me a little freaked out right now. I would hate to lose anyone or have to cull anyone. Most of our chickens are just babies, only have 10 adults at the moment.

This is really stressing me out!! Don't know what to do other than to just ride it out!!