Is this Infectious Coryza? Questions.

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barkinghills

barkinghills

Chirping
8 Years
Dec 17, 2011
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Hi,

I have read through many threads on infectious coryza and think my chicken has it. I have questions though.

I have one very sick Easter Egger that is 5 months old. About 3 days ago I noticed she was holding her beak open and had a little blood around her beak. I thought it was a mouth injury. She seemed to act ok otherwise. Yesterday I spent more time observing her and realized she had swollen nasal area and she would sling her head around to spew cloudy whitish mucous everywhere. Beak still held open, and she stretches her neck up a lot. Yesterday she started to look sick/lethargic and I noticed a very foul smell from her mucous. Today she is gurgly when she breathes, and is very lethargic. She coughs a high-pitched cough occasionally. She seems to be drinking ok, doesn't appear to be eating much.

I separated her yesterday from the flock, which consists of about 35 chickens on one acre of pasture, with an 8x8' henhouse to sleep in at night. They are our hobby/pets/egg layers. We do not show. No other chicken owners in or out, no new birds, no visits to shows etc. There are other chickens in the rural neighborhood, but none within site. The flock is as follows:

one 2 y/o hen RIR
3 Jersey Giants, 6 months old.
one leghorn cockerel, 5 months old.
about 20 pullets, 5 months old, (RIR, leghorns, wyandottes, easter eggers, barred rocks)
6 pullets, 4 months old (RIR, golden sex link, buff orp, australorps)
3 sebright bantam pullets, 4 months old

This flock all started here as day-old chicks which have been raised together with the 4 month-olds joining the larger flock several months ago. Everyone has been healthy up to now.

I read up on symptoms, remembering something about foul-smelling discharge, and it sounds like infectious coryza. Does this sound right?

My questions:

-what if anything is the treatment? The sick one looks very bad and will be culled soon if not better.
-will the whole flock catch this? Everyone else looks ok so far. What if anything can I do to help the rest of the flock?
-Is it advisable to give the whole flock Sulmet? Something else?
-I have read of people culling entire flocks for this, and others with some chickens that recovered. Am I going to have to cull my entire flock and start over?? Will the ones that survive this episode infect future chickens?

Thanks for any help you can offer.
 
It certainly does sound like Corzya. You will have to treat the whole flock, but do keep this hen isolated. Yes Sulmet is the medicine of choice for this. Sounds like you did your homework already tho..... Good luck and keep us posted.
 
Coryza is one of those diseases that if she recovers, she will be a carrier for life which means she will be able to infect any new birds and the old ones. It is also my understanding that you can treat her with one med but if it comes back you will need another medication. Most people cull since they do not want that illness to spread through their flocks and cause problems in the future.

I am by no means an expert on this. Maybe you could PM speckledhen or dawg53 and ask their opinions. They will not steer you wrong!
 
In the meantime, you could medicate so she isn't suffering. Keep her quarantined. Clean coop, feeders, waterers with a bleach solution. Good luck!
 
I am so sorry you are having to go through this.
hugs.gif
I had to deal with infectious coryza a couple years ago. The thing that makes me think that this is coryza most is the smell you mentioned. When my easter egger rescues came down with coryza right after we got them, the most apparent thing was the awful smell. It smells exactly like disease and death. Awful. These birds recovered well on Sulmet. They have not infected the other rescues in with them and I have heard that chickens are only carriers of coryza for 5 or 6 months. That may not be true and I can't varify it, but mine have not infected the other rescues so it may be true. But I wouldn't bet on it. I would not cull your whole flock of birds yet. I would separate the one with coryza and either cull her and send her to a lab for a necropsy or put her on Sulmet. If it's apparent that they are all coming down with coryza, I might consider culling the whole flock, though. For me, 35 chickens would be too many to handle with this. The thing I regret most about not culling my birds that came down with coryza is that I will never know for sure if they are putting my other birds at risk. No way to know until it's too late. It's a constant worry that I would not wish on anyone. If you want to go through with treatments, Sulmet will work. Keep in mind that I'm no expert and have only dealt with coryza once.
 
brahmakid11 said:
You can get some Tylan that's for coryza at tractor supply. 1 or 2 times my whole flock got it and the Tylan cured all of them
Click to expand...
No, it did not cure them! Coryza is incurable! Let's be careful not to dispense misinformation here. Coryza is a carrier disease and will stay in the body even when symptoms are gone.


With blood on the beak and the high pitched cough, you may want to research Infectious Laryngotracheitis as well. A nasty disease, for sure, and I'm not saying she has it, but it's worth looking into.
 
Not if they had Coryza, it didn't. They may not have symptoms now, but if that's what it was, they are now carriers and can infect any other birds they come in contact with. It's plain old science.
 
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