Flock still sneezing what to do??

[chookmummy]

Our flock is only four months old. We have 19 chickens. They started sneezing when they were young and they were wet sneezes. We gave the birds electrolytes and apple cider vinegar in their water and some garlic and herbs every now and then and they went away for a while but now they are sneezing again. Is it because we stopped giving the herbs, garlic and vinegar? Most of them are dry but one or two are wet (one or two every other week or so, not much). Please help! We don't want to cull them. Any help would be appreciated!!

 

[Pyxis]

Did all the chickens come from the same source, or did you introduce new ones at some point?

Is your coop setup perhaps overly dusty, or could there be a buildup of ammonia (coop needs to be cleaned)? These are things that might be causing it if it's not a respiratory disease, but it sounds like it's been kind of chronic, which isn't a great sign.

You may be dealing with a respiratory disease. Once a bird has an illness such as this, there is no cure - you cannot ever get rid of it, it's in your flock until they all die. There are a couple exceptions, like infectious bronchitis which will go away after about a year, but for the most part once one of these diseases is in, the only way to get it out is to cull the whole flock.

You have a choice here. If you think you want to see what could be going on, I would recommend testing. You can take some swabs from her throat and get testing done through Zoologix Labs. You'd want to ask for the Poultry Respiratory Panel, which last I knew was $98.

Then, when you get the testing back, maybe it'll turn out that it wasn't a respiratory disease. Good! But if it is a respiratory disease, then your choice is to either cull the flock, or close the flock.

If you decide to close the flock, what that means is that they'd all be carriers of the disease for life, you couldn't sell or give away birds or chicks, and you'd have to treat them with antibiotics whenever they have a symptom flare up. And if you ever wanted to get more chickens, when you add them to your flock, they would get sick and become disease carriers too.

If you think you just want to go ahead and keep them and don't mind a potential disease being in your flock forever, and don't mind that you wouldn't be able to sell or give away birds, and just want to try to treat them without spending any money on testing, then I would try Tylan. Tylan works pretty well to alleviate symptoms for both the 'main' bacterial respiratory diseases, which are MG and Coryza. If it's a viral disease though, it won't have any effect, of course.

 

[chookmummy]

Did all the chickens come from the same source, or did you introduce new ones at some point?

Is your coop setup perhaps overly dusty, or could there be a buildup of ammonia (coop needs to be cleaned)? These are things that might be causing it if it's not a respiratory disease, but it sounds like it's been kind of chronic, which isn't a great sign.

You may be dealing with a respiratory disease. Once a bird has an illness such as this, there is no cure - you cannot ever get rid of it, it's in your flock until they all die. There are a couple exceptions, like infectious bronchitis which will go away after about a year, but for the most part once one of these diseases is in, the only way to get it out is to cull the whole flock.

You have a choice here. If you think you want to see what could be going on, I would recommend testing. You can take some swabs from her throat and get testing done through Zoologix Labs. You'd want to ask for the Poultry Respiratory Panel, which last I knew was $98.

Then, when you get the testing back, maybe it'll turn out that it wasn't a respiratory disease. Good! But if it is a respiratory disease, then your choice is to either cull the flock, or close the flock.

If you decide to close the flock, what that means is that they'd all be carriers of the disease for life, you couldn't sell or give away birds or chicks, and you'd have to treat them with antibiotics whenever they have a symptom flare up. And if you ever wanted to get more chickens, when you add them to your flock, they would get sick and become disease carriers too.

If you think you just want to go ahead and keep them and don't mind a potential disease being in your flock forever, and don't mind that you wouldn't be able to sell or give away birds, and just want to try to treat them without spending any money on testing, then I would try Tylan. Tylan works pretty well to alleviate symptoms for both the 'main' bacterial respiratory diseases, which are MG and Coryza. If it's a viral disease though, it won't have any effect, of course.

Ok, thank you for your help. If we do decide to keep them all, what is the downside of having sick birds if you can alleviate their symptoms? (I know that sounds like a stupid question ha ha, I'm just trying to figure this all out.) If we decide to keep them and get more birds and they get it too, can we not eat any of them or any of their eggs? If we do have to cull them, we would want wait until we could eat them, is that not an option? Can you eat sick birds? Will they make you sick? Can you eat their eggs?

Thanks again for all your help.

 

[Pyxis]

Ok, thank you for your help. If we do decide to keep them all, what is the downside of having sick birds if you can alleviate their symptoms? (I know that sounds like a stupid question ha ha, I'm just trying to figure this all out.) If we decide to keep them and get more birds and they get it too, can we not eat any of them or any of their eggs? If we do have to cull them, we would want wait until we could eat them, is that not an option? Can you eat sick birds? Will they make you sick? Can you eat their eggs?

Thanks again for all your help.

You can eat them. Downside is that when you treat with antibiotics, there's a withdrawal period during which you can't eat them or their eggs. Plus, when they're feeling sick their egg production will of course be down. And then there's the extra work you have to put in to treat them every time they're having symptoms, like administering the medication to each bird, etc. And the added cost of having to buy the medicine to have on hand, etc.

 

[chookmummy]

You can eat them. Downside is that when you treat with antibiotics, there's a withdrawal period during which you can't eat them or their eggs. Plus, when they're feeling sick their egg production will of course be down. And then there's the extra work you have to put in to treat them every time they're having symptoms, like administering the medication to each bird, etc. And the added cost of having to buy the medicine to have on hand, etc.

Ok, great! One last question. If we decide not to treat them can we still eat them? Or is that only if we treat them that they become safe to eat. As medicine is quite expensive, how long can we wait until we give it to them? Can we wait until they are big enough to eat and then just eat them without having to pay for medicine? This would be a last resort, but if we do have to to cull them, we would rather eat them than just throwing away the corpses.

Thanks for all your help.

 

[Eggcessive]

Please try and get one or two diagnosed, through your state vet which would be cheaper, or through one of the commercial labs. You might be dealing with something environmental. Or it could be infectious bronchitis virus, which is common and only makes them carriers for 5 months to a year after recovery. Antibiotics do not help. Most grown hens recover without treatment.

 

[chookmummy]

Please try and get one or two diagnosed, through your state vet which would be cheaper, or through one of the commercial labs. You might be dealing with something environmental. Or it could be infectious bronchitis virus, which is common and only makes them carriers for 5 months to a year after recovery. Antibiotics do not help. Most grown hens recover without treatment.

Ok, the only problem is, I live in Canada. Do you know of anywhere we can get them diagnosed that's in Canada? Ontario preferably? Thanks.

 

[Eggcessive]

Here is one link that you may contact about testing or necropsy services:
https://www.uoguelph.ca/ahl/contact-us/email-or-phone-us