Concerned about my girls

[tiny529]

I noticed the other day that my Dominique, Lucy, has the sniffles. She sneezed a couple of times while I was holding her and she shot out some clear stuff on my hand. She also has some poop smudges on her fluffy butt feathers. I bought some tetracycline and have mixed it into their water for the past couple of days. Today, my only confirmed egg-layer has poop smudge on her butt and it looks like my one suspected egg-layer has some on her butt too. My other two are clean, so far.

Should I be worried? Will this tetracycline stuff clear up a minor illness? Is there anything else that I should be doing for them? This has been a weird winter... Wet, below freezing some days and into the upper 40s other days. I don't know if that's the cause or if it has something to do with them just starting to lay. I'm really new to chickens, so I'm kind of at a loss.

 

[teach1rusl]

They probably have an upper respir. infection. But there are many different kinds, some mild and some severe. Just based on your description, I would suspect just a mild case with your girls. Only time will tell whether the Tetra. will help. Some cases run their course on their own. If it doesn't improve or gets worse, you can try a stronger med., such as Tylan 50 or something like that. At this point, I wouldn't worry too much.