Colorado

[Rock Home Isle]

Glad you're home and feeling better. Hope it was successful.

I moving slower...but at least I'm still moving.

 

[TracieJS]

WK what a great coop! My chicks and are envious

Quick question for the experts. We brought home 4 5-week Easter egger chicks 8 days ago and are keeping them inside until they get a bit bigger to go out with my 4 12-week old chicks. 3 of the new chicks seem to have come down with a cold, sneezing and clear runny noses. Do I need to take them to the vet or give them vitamins? When should I get REALLY worried? We are using straw in their pen. I take them outside to the yard when I get home for a few hours. The grass has been damp and they have gotten rained on for a few minutes until I can gather them and get them inside. Could they have gotten chilled so easily?

tHANK YOU!!!

Tracie. :/

 

[Chick_In_The_Burbs]

Rock Island- Glad to see you back!

Tracie- That doesn't sound good. I would start some vitamins now and post in the emergancy section for better insight/advise.

Wsmith- I love the image of your girls and the hail! I can just picture it...

So I candled for the last time tonight. Day 14- all four Silkie eggs are on track, one was bouncing like crazy! Three of the RIRxLeghorn / RIRxOrphington where good. One was clear so Summer has seven eggs now. I can't wait! Why can't they just hurry up and hatch???

 

[Mommato5]

WK what a great coop! My chicks and are envious
Quick question for the experts. We brought home 4 5-week Easter egger chicks 8 days ago and are keeping them inside until they get a bit bigger to go out with my 4 12-week old chicks. 3 of the new chicks seem to have come down with a cold, sneezing and clear runny noses. Do I need to take them to the vet or give them vitamins? When should I get REALLY worried? We are using straw in their pen. I take them outside to the yard when I get home for a few hours. The grass has been damp and they have gotten rained on for a few minutes until I can gather them and get them inside. Could they have gotten chilled so easily?
tHANK YOU!!!
Tracie. :/

I don't know anything about chicken illness but my chicks are 5 weeks old, too, and live outside full time, no heat (for over a week now!). They've been rained on nearly every day this week without getting chilled or developing any sneezes or runny noses. They appear to be pretty hardy at this age. I would suggest that their symptoms are not related to being chilled or spending time outdoors and I would suspect that they are sick. Checking the emergencies board is a very good idea!

 

[Minchi]

Originally Posted by TracieJS

WK what a great coop! My chicks and are envious
Quick question for the experts. We brought home 4 5-week Easter egger chicks 8 days ago and are keeping them inside until they get a bit bigger to go out with my 4 12-week old chicks. 3 of the new chicks seem to have come down with a cold, sneezing and clear runny noses. Do I need to take them to the vet or give them vitamins? When should I get REALLY worried? We are using straw in their pen. I take them outside to the yard when I get home for a few hours. The grass has been damp and they have gotten rained on for a few minutes until I can gather them and get them inside. Could they have gotten chilled so easily?
tHANK YOU!!!
Tracie.

You might put some antibiotics in there water for 7 to 14 days. Last time mine were sneezing and acting a little sluggish, I did that with a little Apple cider vinegar and sugar.

 

[dennarahl]

WK what a great coop! My chicks and are envious
Quick question for the experts. We brought home 4 5-week Easter egger chicks 8 days ago and are keeping them inside until they get a bit bigger to go out with my 4 12-week old chicks. 3 of the new chicks seem to have come down with a cold, sneezing and clear runny noses. Do I need to take them to the vet or give them vitamins? When should I get REALLY worried? We are using straw in their pen. I take them outside to the yard when I get home for a few hours. The grass has been damp and they have gotten rained on for a few minutes until I can gather them and get them inside. Could they have gotten chilled so easily?
tHANK YOU!!!
Tracie.

Are you sure the straw is good? If it's moldy it could be giving them problems. I would contact a vet or do some searching of the emergency board depending on what you're willing to do for your chicks.

 

[Mtn Margie]

WK what a great coop! My chicks and are envious
Quick question for the experts. We brought home 4 5-week Easter egger chicks 8 days ago and are keeping them inside until they get a bit bigger to go out with my 4 12-week old chicks. 3 of the new chicks seem to have come down with a cold, sneezing and clear runny noses. Do I need to take them to the vet or give them vitamins? When should I get REALLY worried? We are using straw in their pen. I take them outside to the yard when I get home for a few hours. The grass has been damp and they have gotten rained on for a few minutes until I can gather them and get them inside. Could they have gotten chilled so easily?
tHANK YOU!!!
Tracie.

I would make sure it is not a dust reaction first. If they have a viral issue, antibiotics wont help. Try some Poultry RX in their water as that really helps the sneezing and respiratory system. If they come down with a bacterial infection, then you can use antibiotics and stick to the directions exactly.

 

[coloradogal]

Yea I got that storm too..... I still don't have a finished coop. I had just put the girls out and was starting to make lunch when suddenly we were hit by a downpour. I look outside to check on them and the tarp I use to cover the temp pen I made for them was blown completely off and they are standing in the down pouring rain shivering at the spot I put them in. So I know they were telling me "we want out". So I go out and re cover the pen so I can scarf down my lunch that is very cold by this point. I am soaked through and through. I go out to see if they are still wanting in and they have not moved so I go get my heavy coat. As soon as I go out to start bringing them in it starts hailing. They are freaked out and I am getting pummeled by almost marble sized hail. I take them out one at a time and put them under my coat and run them in to the house. After I get the last one in it stops stops hailing and within 5 min it stops raining and the sun comes out... So I give it a few min to let the girls recover and let things dry a bit and put the girls back out. They were a bit hesitant to go and Menchi proceeded to tell me off until she noticed that it had stopped raining. She is still giving me a bit of an evil eye like I made that happen.

My ducks love the rain but sadly, we did get some hail two nights ago. A few of the youngest babies had no idea what was going on and were trying to huddle in a corner. So like all over protective chicken keepers, I run out there with a swimming towel draped over my head and shoulders and dragged them into the coop. The ones under the outside coop were safe but not the ones hiding in the corners. Hail hurts.

Wait until their first snow and their first blizzard or even first snow is higher than they are experience. That's when things got very, very real for me.

Does anyone here make their own chicken feed?

 

[coloradogal]

Laproscopic surgery and now I'm home. Great to be home.

Hospitals are no place to be if you don't feel well.

Welcome home!

I'm sorry, but that is hilarious! Oh, the things we do for our chickens...

Rock, glad you are home! There no place like home when you are not feeling up to par!
Coloradogal, I may want "Grandma R's" phone number in the future for my developing Roo. I'll keep him 'till he crows just in case but I don't have much hope of an "early blooming pullet" any more! I would love to keep him but the neighbor expressly said no roosters and I'm just not sure we could make him dinner.

I'll give it to you. Sometimes I forget things...crap... dannarahl - I forgot to get the check out to you. I will try to make sure it goes out today.... so if I forget, just keep reminding me. I have so much going on between work and puppies and chickens and lawn work and my son, that I just draw a blank sometimes.

I can't eat my own birds yet. I know that someday I will but just not now. I can eat other peoples though. Although I have two marans roosters that I'm really not a fan of.

 

[coloradogal]

WK what a great coop! My chicks and are envious
Quick question for the experts. We brought home 4 5-week Easter egger chicks 8 days ago and are keeping them inside until they get a bit bigger to go out with my 4 12-week old chicks. 3 of the new chicks seem to have come down with a cold, sneezing and clear runny noses. Do I need to take them to the vet or give them vitamins? When should I get REALLY worried? We are using straw in their pen. I take them outside to the yard when I get home for a few hours. The grass has been damp and they have gotten rained on for a few minutes until I can gather them and get them inside. Could they have gotten chilled so easily?
tHANK YOU!!!
Tracie.

Hi Tracie,

It's too early to know. Almost all backyard flocks get various respiratory diseases from the wild bird population. In most cases, it will go away on its own and you'll not have another issue with those symptoms unless they get stressed. One reason why chickens brought into your place from others is that stress reaction. On an off note: The 'organic' chicken people have led to the commercial raising of chickens in darkness, no fresh air, open sky, etc. If you give your chickens access to fresh air and open space, they will pick up things from the wild bird population. So now the issue comes to whether it is severe or not. There are numerous threads on byc regarding this but IMHO: just pick up some Oxine and run it through the humidifier in their coop for a half hour a day for 7 days. It should help tremendously as well as adding it in minute quantities to their drinking water.

Respiratory issues is not an 'if' but a 'when' with chickens. They have such gentle respiratory systems which is why ventilation is more important than almost any other factor we have control over.

Don't stress too much just learn. It's hard to tell a sick chicken because they hide symptoms so well. I remember the first time a couple of my chickens got the crud and i freaked out. I called my Mom and asked her and she said just not to worry but she was Mom and what did she know, right? Then I went to BYC and was scared out of my mind at all the things it could be...with a few people recommending culling the entire flock for what he believed, he did not know for sure, was CRD. ***? A little drastic when he wasn't even sure.

That said, your babies could be suffering from infectious bronchitis. Don't freak as it just has to take its course. I had my chicks vaccinated from it although the chicks born here with most likely get it. There is really not much you can do as rodents can bring it in as can wild birds. Once again, Oxine can help.

Anyways, just don't freak out. Chickens get respiratory issues very easy. If you add too much DE, you can get symptoms. Treating before you know for sure what it is can cause problems. Most of the really severe things are noticeable, 'oh sh!t' things like crud or bubbles in the eyes, labored breathing, no desire to move, etc.

When I was a young girl, the chickens were never mine and because of that, I didn't worry if a chicken had a cold -no, they don't get colds but back then I believed they could- or was broody. It wasn't my responsibility so I just collected eggs. It becomes intensely real when they are your responsibility. At some point, I think I believed that my chickens have had every major disease there is. I was making symptoms fit, etc. But they were fine and healthy and my eggs were prolific, even in winter.

I guess I'm just saying don't stress so much. Make sure their poop is normal, pick up some VetRx and if you need a few ounces of Oxine to do the water treatment, just PM me. Bairo has an excellent page on tons of things. https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/ailments-such

and one on Oxine. Oxine is known to the alternate health community as MMS and is used internally. So there shouldn't be any fear of having it around your chickens. I had one girl sounding really bad and gave her a few doses and it cleared right up. https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/bairos-member-page scroll down for his oxine information. I use the stuff all the time for cleaning around the house.


edit: realized that my quote around organic could be taken the wrong way. IMHO: by making chickens organic, they have taken from them the ability to see the sky and breathe fresh air. I am not talking small flocks but commercially raised. They are kept in virtual isolation, many places even with their own air supply to prevent infection from the wild bird population. Chickens will pick up things from the wild birds, which is why backyard flocks always have crud circulating that commercial places dont. Commercial places have biosecurity protocols in place. So sorry if it sounded snarky. It wasn't my intention.