12 wk old chicks w/ Coryza- What should I do?

[LizD360]

I have 3 one year old hens (1 BA and 2 RIR's) and 4 new girls (2Americauna's, 1 BR, and 1 BA) these girls are our pets and we love them dearly- eggs are just a bonus.

This summer we decided to get more chicks since we only had 3 chickens and always wanted to have 6 or 8. So I got 2 Americaunas 1 BA and 1 Barred Rock. Everything was fine until 4 weeks a go the Barred Rock was taken by a hawk while they were outside. I made the most stupid decision to try and replace her. I found a chick the same age from a guy that sells chickens at a local farm swap. The chick seemed healthy and after some time I introduced her/him (yes it turned out to be a rooster and a diseased chick) to the other 3 chicks.

2 days later 1 of the Americaunas and the BA started sneezing and having a runny nose. I started all of them on Duramyacin for what I thought was just a respritory problem and everything seemed fine. 5 days into that antibiotic the BR and the BA started with the runny nose again so I got Tylan 50 injectible. I decided to treat all four with the injections and again everything seemed to be OK.
This week I was looking at the BA because she sounded weird- and I realized one of her nostrils was totally clogged! When I cleaned it off the smell hit me and I knew after reading on here and other sites they had Coryza. I looked at and picked them all up to smell them- they all have that awful smell.

The older girls and the youger chicks have never been housed together.

I know they will always be carrriers, my question is will it kill them?
If I integrate the older girls with the younger ones I know they will eventually catch it- will it be more harmful to them because they are older?

Or should I just put down the 4 younger chickens because it would be cruel to them to let this diease continue?

 

[brahmakid11]

not to long ago my hole flock of chickens got coryza and we had to get every chicken one by one and squirt the stuff down their throat and once we where done i had chicken crap all over me

 

[LizD360]

Are your chickens better? What did you give them? Do they still have that rotten smell?

 

[Pickaduck]

The best thing, in my opinion, is to cull. I know they are your pets but considering the older chickens are healthy I wouldn't want to purposefully infect them just for the sake of keeping the newer ones. As hard as it is, I think culling is best.

Regardless of what you do - don't feel bad about making the mistake of introducing it into your flock. You didn't know and that person who sold the chick ought to be smacked for selling sick chicks!!

I am sorry you are having to deal with this!

 

[LizD360]

Thanks Pickaduck! I can't tell you how sick I feel over all of this. I just want to make the right choice and it's going to really suck no matter what I decide to do.

 

[Chickie'sMoma]

with all the rains lately could it be fungus getting into their lungs/bodies and not anything viral? if the antibiotics don't seem to be helping i would think this is not viral and could be a fungus getting into their lungs.

look for a thread started by Speckled Hen about the use of Oxine AH to help with viral, bacterial and fungal issues.