For my chickens' water, can I use tetracycline made for fish aquarium?

[Carolyn252]

You are so sweet!!! I'll order some online. No problem. BTW, I just picked up the new hen from the post office and she's happily ensconced in her new pen. Eating and drinking and walking around exploring her new place. Beautiful bird. Hoping to get some true blue eggs from her. (Not for breeding; just for eating. The granddaughter asked for blue eggs, so I specifically got this particular EasterEgger hen.) Just took some photos of her. Here she is.

 

[Carolyn252]

Quote:
Good idea. I thought of that too. But I didn't think of it until after the breeder was already on her way to her post office to ship the bird to me.

 

[fishnet1971]

she is beautiful! i have been wondering abuot the shipping stuff. How does that work? do they get hurt, etc?

 

[Carolyn252]

Quote:
Nope. There are regulation boxes for shipping live birds. My county's postal distribution center post office says they get hundreds of them shipped through every Spring. Here's a website of one company that makes and sells the boxes. Scroll down and you'll see photos of the chicken boxes. http://www.hm-e.net/products.htm

It's a red and white cardboard box with vent holes that are covered over with a breathable fabric. Box says LIVE BIRDS and Handle with care and stuff like that, all over it.

Shipper puts your name and phone number on the outside of the box and ships it Express Mail overnight service.

Both the shipper and the receiver have to phone their local post office first and ask if they take live bird packages, and if not, where the closest post office is that does. Be sure and ask if there are any special hours that you have to use. Some will only take the package in the late afternoon, so the bird doesn't have to be in there more than necessary.

For me, the post office that is my county's postal distribution center is the one that does it. A postal distribution center is the post office that gets the mail delivered to it by trucking it in from the airport that brings in the mail by plane. I always phone my postal distribution center and tell the nice lady there to expect a live bird package tomorrow morning and to phone me as soon as she gets it in off the truck.

The shipper may put some apple slices and a few grapes in the box with the pullets/hens. I've never purchased chicks.

My "regular" post office is just 6 minutes away from my house; my county's mail distribution center is about 25 minutes away.
THE SHIPPER ADDRESSES THE PACKAGE TO THAT POST OFFICE'S ADDRESS !! Not to your home address. Assuming you can drive over and get the package from that post office a whole lot quicker than waiting for that post office to put the package on a truck and bring it to your local post office and then the package waits there for hours until it's sorted and put on a local mailman truck for delivery to your home.

It's nice and dark in the box; most of the hours that the hens are in there are dusk to dawn, so they're asleep anyway. I've done this only two times, it's true, but both times the birds were perfectly fine, and started eating and drinking and walking around within five minutes of being let out into their new pen.

There are several BYC postings about shipping birds.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

I don't know if you know this, but there are poultry antibiotics available in the feed stores (in the poultry section)- you don't have to get fish antibiotics.

Here is an example from a retailer:
http://www.jefferslivestock.com/antibiotics-and-sulfas/camid/LIV/cc/3502/c2c/sc/

And here is a handy website for looking the drugs up before purchasing:
http://www.drugs.com/vet/chickens-a.html
scroll down for treatments for chickens- click on a, b, c, etc. to get the alphabetized list of poultry meds and the info on them.

Here is another chicken supplier:
http://www.randallburkey.com/Antibiotics-Pharmaceuticals/products/36/

Also- here is terramycin:
http://www.allivet.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=25063&Show=ExtInfo

http://www.calvetsupply.com/product/Tetracycline_Hydrochloride_Powder/Antibiotics
I have ordered from calvetsupply and jefferslivestock before and been happy.