Hi everyone.
My five week long experience of being a chicken owner gets worse! Not only have we endured dealing with a cannibal buff orpington (and failing) and had two severe cases of bullying which has seen two hens have to go back to the breeder, we're now in the throes of a MG outbreak.
The problem originally started when we had to bring in a new friend for a bullied hen that was being kept away from the others. As all the birds came from the same breeder (and in the case of the two we were going to keep as coop-mates, from the exact same pen) we were told there was no need to quarantine. However, on Sunday morning, after three days of fierce bullying after she arrived, the new hen got so run down that the stress made her develop MG (yes, she was obviously already carrying it, but the stress caused it to rear its head). Needless to say, we immediately took her back to the breeder, along with her coopmate, got a couple of large doses of soluble Tylan antibiotics into our remaining two girls, just in case, and disinfected everything in sight!
Nonetheless, our buff orpington appeared this morning from the coop with a frothy eye and a runny nose and we immediately knew she'd been infected. So, after a £20 trip to the vets, and a prescription for more Tylan Soluble (7-10 days worth of doses), we're worried.
Can any of you guys out there share with me your experiences of the disease progression of MG, and reassure us if our girl is likely to recover, whether the Tylan Soluble is likely to work, and whether it is inevitable that our other hen will also come down with the same thing?
We also wonder if bathing her face in the Tylan will help too, as we'd heard that can sometimes be enough to get the active ingredients into all the right places. She's not a big drinker, and we think that's why the original doses of soluble Tylan didn't stop her becoming infected. She just didn't drink enough of it to have an effect.
From what I can make out, MG alone is pretty unlikely to kill a 20 week old pullet, but is incredibly contagious, and likely to affect her coop mate sooner rather than later. As they are both going to be drinking the antibiotics, is this likely to supress the disease in the, as yet, unaffected hen anyway?
Finally, we were told by the breeder that we should cut out the pro-biotic in their feed (as we are also currently right in the middle of a course of Flubenvet worming meds too - bad timing, but we don't want to stop without completing the seven day course) and should also stop the poultry vits and calcium in their water whilst giving the soluble antibiotics. I'm not sure this is right - surely the one time you really need to give pro-biotics is when the girls are weakened through worming meds and antibiotics, and, having had soft shelled eggs for the last three days, I'm not happy about reducing their calcuim/vitamin supplements either. Am I right to continue with all these supplements or not?
Sorry for so many questions!
My five week long experience of being a chicken owner gets worse! Not only have we endured dealing with a cannibal buff orpington (and failing) and had two severe cases of bullying which has seen two hens have to go back to the breeder, we're now in the throes of a MG outbreak.
The problem originally started when we had to bring in a new friend for a bullied hen that was being kept away from the others. As all the birds came from the same breeder (and in the case of the two we were going to keep as coop-mates, from the exact same pen) we were told there was no need to quarantine. However, on Sunday morning, after three days of fierce bullying after she arrived, the new hen got so run down that the stress made her develop MG (yes, she was obviously already carrying it, but the stress caused it to rear its head). Needless to say, we immediately took her back to the breeder, along with her coopmate, got a couple of large doses of soluble Tylan antibiotics into our remaining two girls, just in case, and disinfected everything in sight!
Nonetheless, our buff orpington appeared this morning from the coop with a frothy eye and a runny nose and we immediately knew she'd been infected. So, after a £20 trip to the vets, and a prescription for more Tylan Soluble (7-10 days worth of doses), we're worried.
Can any of you guys out there share with me your experiences of the disease progression of MG, and reassure us if our girl is likely to recover, whether the Tylan Soluble is likely to work, and whether it is inevitable that our other hen will also come down with the same thing?
We also wonder if bathing her face in the Tylan will help too, as we'd heard that can sometimes be enough to get the active ingredients into all the right places. She's not a big drinker, and we think that's why the original doses of soluble Tylan didn't stop her becoming infected. She just didn't drink enough of it to have an effect.
From what I can make out, MG alone is pretty unlikely to kill a 20 week old pullet, but is incredibly contagious, and likely to affect her coop mate sooner rather than later. As they are both going to be drinking the antibiotics, is this likely to supress the disease in the, as yet, unaffected hen anyway?
Finally, we were told by the breeder that we should cut out the pro-biotic in their feed (as we are also currently right in the middle of a course of Flubenvet worming meds too - bad timing, but we don't want to stop without completing the seven day course) and should also stop the poultry vits and calcium in their water whilst giving the soluble antibiotics. I'm not sure this is right - surely the one time you really need to give pro-biotics is when the girls are weakened through worming meds and antibiotics, and, having had soft shelled eggs for the last three days, I'm not happy about reducing their calcuim/vitamin supplements either. Am I right to continue with all these supplements or not?
Sorry for so many questions!
