1 week old chicks gasping for air filling crop with air!

[tegg]

i got 12 eggs from down south...im in the Northern Territory Australia... and only 3 hatched. they are arucanas and they were doing fine but then 4 days ago one started to get a sticky eye. i picked up the chick and realised its crop was full of air. i got a crop needle and let the air out..trated the eye and thought nothing of it. the next day the other chick had a sticky eye, and the previous one was gasping and filling its crop with air again. i rushed the chick to the vets but it was too late the vet said their was nothing she could do for it...reluctantly and with a very heavy heart i gave the vet the permition to euthinise the chick.
now i have two very sick chicks with this mistery illness. they have been wormed, they have been cleared of any mites and they are currently on antibiotics that wont clash with a powder called roni-vet for cangker)..sorry about spelling).
but the chick has been on antibiotics for 2 days now and no improovment has happend.
what illness would cause these syptoms:
puffy, sticky eyes..., gasping for air and filling crop with air....,not eating or drinking very week....,unusual discharge around the inside of the mouth, not a plaqe but almost like yellow flem, keeps coming back over night.
if you can help. please let me know what you think this illness is. from tegan.

 

[burquechick]

I'm really new to chicken keeping, but my non-expert opinion would be bacterial infection. Usually when you see yellow goo, it means bacteria. Give the antibiotics a chance to work. Sometimes it takes a while if the infection is really bad before you see any improvements. I'm talking from human experience here, so chickens might be different.

In the meantime, it sounds to me like your eggs were hatched under some stress and that may be why your chickies have all been born with weakened immune systems, while a lot of them died. Next time maybe you can check your humidity and temp. with some independent instruments.

What are you feeding them, BTW? Maybe try giving them some yogurt? I don't know if that would help or hurt at this point, but I know it has a lot of beneficial bacteria in it and it might help when they go off the antibiotics.