Chickens likely have respiratory illness, advice please?

[Bluejeanwifey]

I have a free range flock of about 27birds. So far I have lost 3 roosters to this, even after meds. One has survived but still has symptoms, two more developed the sniffles. I plan to seclude my egg layers, and med the water for everyone else. NONE of my hens have had symptoms. Question, are only the infected birds carriers or are ALL exposed birds carriers. If only the roosters have had it, will that affect any babies hatched? Including babies i have about 30 birds. and i really do not want to start over. I was using them, some for selling, some for show eventually, and of course for pets as well. This will make it very hard to do anything but keep eggs to eat. Suggestions? Advice? Should i just start over?

 

[CMV]

You can have your flock tested to find out for sure what you are dealing with. Your county extension agent can help you find someone to help you out with that. In the meantime you should probably assume that all exposed birds are carriers of whatever killed the roos. I would start separating out the sick from the healthy. I would likely cull the actively ill birds and send them in for necropsy, but you can treat them if you wish. If you have any long term plans for poultry keeping you are likely going to need to get that testing done and/or cull the whole lot and start over. There is seldom any good news with CRD.

I am sorry.

 

[serenityNH]

I am so sorry you are dealing with this. I recently had to deal with Infectious Bronchitis in my flock. Not all the chickens showed symptoms but since we were afraid they would be carriers we put everyone down except for one hen and her chicks that had been separated from the rest of flock that I honestly believed were not infected. They showed no signs and were far away from everyone else and we were extremely careful with biosecurity. We started our flock over recently after completely disinfecting everything and giving everything time to 'air' out.
Just yesterday one of our new chicks started showing signs of IB and today quite a few were sick. Apparently the hen and chicks we saved were infected after all and are carriers. I guess my suggestion would be either put EVERYONE down or live with a flock of carriers and practice biosecurity as much as possible. Don't let anyone with chickens on your property.
All it took was one person walking into my yard that had infected chickens to infect my entire flock. It's a painful decision and I know I didn't make the right one and now I am paying the price. I feel for you, it is an awful thing to go through.
Best of luck.
Angie