Weezing duck and chicken sneezing blood

[000]

Hello,
I noticed a few days ago that my male moscovy duck had a cough... I decided to just keep an eye on him to see if it got worse. Today he was weezing and seemed to be struggling to breath (loud, rattling breaths). I picked him up (which was easy because he is being lartgargic) and his lungs sounded very weird. I sat out in the coop for a while and noticed another chicken (Wyandotte hen) sneezing loudly. I examained each of the other chickens and noticed two (white leghorns I resued a few years again from a battery hen farm) that have blood around their nostrils and splatted on their beaks... Looks like it came out of their noses. Their tounges were black too, which was weird, but their breathing and behavior is fine.
I'm thinking that I'm going to do a standard upper respiratory infection treatment (duramycin and apple cider vinegar) for now... If anyone has any ideas about what this is or how I can treat it, it would be greatly appreciated. Litterally any advice would help... I've never seen anything like this before.
Thank you for your time,
Grace

 

[dawg53]

It sounds like Infectious Laryngotracheitis (ILT.) I recommend that you get a necrospy performed on your sickest bird to be sure. ILT is a highly contageous viral respiratory disease. Culling will be necessary if it's ILT.

 

[000]

Thank you for your reply. I did some research baised on what you said and discovered that ILT can't be treated with antibiotics... i found some baytril that I'm giving them through a syringe and if it doesn't help then it's probably ILT and I'll start to cull. Do I only have to cull sick birds or is it one of those dieses where it's nessesary to cull the whole flock to prevent reoccurrence?
I have 7 chicks who are only a few weeks old that I have been brooding in my coop.... There has definitely been cross contamination between them and the flock but they seem perfectly healthy. How can I prevent them from getting sick too? They are so tiny and sussuptible... I would hate for them to get sick.
Thank you for your advice,
Grace

 

[Eggcessive]

ILT is contagious to all chickens, and they will remain carriers for life, as will the chickens who are not symptomatic. Usually with ILT, blood is slung everywhere from affected chickens, and they will have severe gasping and “pump handle” breathing or arching of the neck.

That is why I would make sure the blood wasn’t from pecking or a comb injury first. A couple of people here on BYC have said they have ILT in their flocks, but most birds are not affected. Mycoplasma (MG) and infectious bronchitis are much more common, and coryza is around as well. So, if you have a very sick bird, I would do as Dawg53 recommends, and cull it get a necropsy, where they can do testing on a chicken to give a diagnosis before culling more birds. Google “common poultry diseases” and look for the link from University of Florida to read about respiratory diseases. Let us know what happens.