Need help! New chickens had mycoplasma?!

Ok so I'm new here, first ever post. We have a small flock of laying hens that my son and I have raised from chicks. We had two very noisy Roos that we decided to rehome. They were crowing at three in the morning! We ended up trading a local breeder for 5 gorgeous splash Cochins approx 2 months old. All of them looked very healthy but halfway home they were sneezing. I of course went into panic mode when I got home. My husband dispatched them the next day unfortunately but I am terrified my girls will get sick. The newbies were rattling and by the next day they had crusty nasals and were gasping. They were ok at her house but by next day worse. I bleached my shoes and threw out my sons, we both changed our clothes and washed hands before we went out back. I left the sick ones in the front yard and didn't handle them anymore. What's the chances the girls will fall ill? I can't bear the thought of losing them. I'm thankful I caught it before I even got home with them. I called the breeder and she's being responsible and has a vet appt. I just need some piece of mind! Thanks in advance

Wow, I am so impressed by what you did! This is exactly what I wish others would follow through with. You saw an issue and went to extreme measures to make sure you did not expose your current flock to it. Thank you for being so responsible and doing what should have been done. Kudos!

Your current flock will probably be okay since you bleached your shoes and hopefully, took off the clothes you wore, disinfected everything they came in contact with and you didn't put them in with your hens. Bleach will kill most of those germs quite well.
Wherever they touched in the front yard, do your hens go there? If so, you could lime the heck out of that area. Not sure it's a perfect solution, but it may kill whatever they left there.

No they don't go in the front yard at all and I bleached the pen that the sick ones were in. I also left the pen in the front yard figured it could sit for a little while. Something like that shouldn't survive for very long without a host right? I hated to have to do that to the poor things but having a flock that is a continuos health risk wasn't worth it to me. This has been extremely stressful I can't imagine having hundreds of chickens get sick. The woman I purchased them from probably has over 100 chickens and will sadly prob have to cull them all. So so sad

Cluckcluck0814 said:

No they don't go in the front yard at all and I bleached the pen that the sick ones were in. I also left the pen in the front yard figured it could sit for a little while. Something like that shouldn't survive for very long without a host right? I hated to have to do that to the poor things but having a flock that is a continuos health risk wasn't worth it to me. This has been extremely stressful I can't imagine having hundreds of chickens get sick. The woman I purchased them from probably has over 100 chickens and will sadly prob have to cull them all. So so sad

Click to expand...

Well, we'd hope she'll do the right thing, whatever she finds out; however, when faced with a financial hit like that, many folks do not do the right thing, unfortunately, and others pay for it in ways that are not always monetary.

Again, you are the first person in ages I've read about here who has followed exactly the right course of action when faced with respiratory disease in a new bird-if only folks would realize that this is what quarantine is for, to keep disease out of their flock, not to dose obviously ill birds with antibiotics that won't cure them anyway. I'm so sorry you had to do it, but you absolutely did the right thing.

Hopefully, the germs won't live without a host very long; if it was Mycoplasmosis, I can't recall the exact time it can live outside the host, but there is a time limit. Lime does do a good job of killing all sorts of stuff in the soil by making the ground inhospitable to the microbes; I mean it breaks down entire dead bodies in no time flat.