5 week old chicks, just sneezing

[Realtree4]

My 22 chicks will be 5 weeks old tomorrow I was hoping to get them out in their coop next weekend (darn weather!).... Well, now a few of them are sneezing! They don't sound congested, no discharge, eyes are clear, but occasional sneezing.

I put electrolytes and vitamins back in their water last night, but haven't tried anything else yet. They are still using a 70 watt light bulb that is raised because it's been so cold here still. I use pine shaving (flakes) and the room is sooooo dusty! Could they be sneezing from the dust or is this the start of something bad....please no!

Also, I haven't cleaned out the brooder, just add more shavings and there isn't any ammonia smell....they stir it up and everything dried out. Is this something to do with sneezing?

Any ideas on what to do? I don't want to lose them at this point. I don't want to overreact and I don't want to ignore anything either.

 

[DomesticGoddess]

I actually have had the same issue with my 2 weeks olds and I posted about it and didn't get much response. I added aureomycin to their feed a couple of days ago. I will be adding electrolytes on Friday when I can make it in to them farm store. I took out all the pine shavings and i'm just using paper towels for now, I might switch to pet litter. I've raised 2 other sets of chicks already this year the same way with no problems, I'm not understanding what's wrong.

 

[Realtree4]

I actually have had the same issue with my 2 weeks olds and I posted about it and didn't get much response. I added aureomycin to their feed a couple of days ago. I will be adding electrolytes on Friday when I can make it in to them farm store. I took out all the pine shavings and i'm just using paper towels for now, I might switch to pet litter. I've raised 2 other sets of chicks already this year the same way with no problems, I'm not understanding what's wrong.

Thank you! I was wondering about using the horse pellets for bedding to see if that would be better? It seems as that would be less dusty?

 

[DomesticGoddess]

I know they make pet litter pellets, I wonder how they would work.

 

[cafarmgirl]

If you've never completely stripped out the brooder you might try that. Get rid of all the bedding and put down fresh, use large flake shavings. Some people like the pellets as well. It may have just gotten to dusty for them.

 

[Realtree4]

If you've never completely stripped out the brooder you might try that.  Get rid of all the bedding and put down fresh, use large flake shavings.  Some people like the pellets as well.  It may have just gotten to dusty for them.

I'm definitely doing that tomorrow! They seem perfectly fine...eating, drinking, pooping, doing chicken stuff. Just sneezing. But I was in there for about 20 minutes watching them with my face down in the brooder to see who all is sneezing and by that time, my nose was being bothered by the dust. I guess everyone was right when they said chicks are really dusty

This should be interesting though because the brooder is about 3 feet high and to keep them inside, I have hardware cloth zip-tided on top of the boxes. The food/water is in a shorter box attached to that. So I will somehow have to maneuver myself in there while trying to not give all 22 chicks a heart attack.....gonna be fun times

 

[Realtree4]

Well now I feel stupid! As soon as I crawled (literally crawled) inside the brooder, I could smell why they were sneezing! With me being 3 feet above, it didn't smell bad at all, as soon as I got close, it was ammonia and dust galore Poor chicks! It's clean now and no more sneezing! So yay for that!

I hope that helps someone. I had just been adding more shavings to the top and they were stirring it all up....it looked very dry and actually was pretty dry as well. But with there being so many and seeing as how much chickens poop.....well.....

The coop HAS to get done by next weekend!!!!!