- May 31, 2011
- 2
- 0
- 7
Hello,
This is my first post on the forum although i've been reading it for about three months now. I've seen a lot of posts asking questions similar to mine, but none that match my chicken's issues exactly. I apologize for the long post.
We started our chicken adventure three months ago with three gold comets about a year old. I kept them in a dog kennel until I built a henhouse and run for them.
When we moved them, we added several more hens for a total of five gold comets, a pair of big brahmas, a brahma banty, barred rock banty, and a jersey giant (all about a year old)
About a week after moving them, the comets began to have runny noses and gurgling breaths. I read a lot on here about CRD, but there is nothing wrong with eyes, the clear discharge from their noses doesn't smell, they aren't weak, eat like crazy, I get six to seven eggs per day, and they have no other signs of trouble at all.
I isolated the ones that showed signs until nearly all of them did and I ran out of room, and also put them on Tetracycline, and gave them the maximum dosage in their water for three weeks. There was no real result, and I began to use VetRX. They showed signs of improvement some days, others they showed none.
So two months in and currently the gold comets are all showing these symptoms but the severity changes from day to day, with one day being mild or even no problems and then another being pretty bad.
The other hens show signs on various days, no signs of runny noses but just a slight gurgle for a day and then no symptoms for a day.
No signs of trauma at all, they all seem fine other than the gurgling and clear discharge.
Poop is solid, looks normal compared to the photos of healthy poop i've found.
There is no vet nearby me who treats chickens, so that isn't an option.
I just enlarged the outside run today to an area of around forty feet by fifty feet (my dogs, neighbors, and vegetable garden prevents me from letting them free range).
My question is: Could the use of straw bedding in the hen house and nest boxes, as well as an accumulation of dust and straw/weeds that they've scratched into the lower portion of their run be causing the issue? I hope it's allergies or a dust/spore issue instead of CRD.
I think the initial run size may have been a bit too small for them, but today's efforts tripled its size. I don't want to put them back onto the antibiotics if I don't have to, but I'm unsure as to what I should do.
Thanks for any advice you can give.
This is my first post on the forum although i've been reading it for about three months now. I've seen a lot of posts asking questions similar to mine, but none that match my chicken's issues exactly. I apologize for the long post.
We started our chicken adventure three months ago with three gold comets about a year old. I kept them in a dog kennel until I built a henhouse and run for them.
When we moved them, we added several more hens for a total of five gold comets, a pair of big brahmas, a brahma banty, barred rock banty, and a jersey giant (all about a year old)
About a week after moving them, the comets began to have runny noses and gurgling breaths. I read a lot on here about CRD, but there is nothing wrong with eyes, the clear discharge from their noses doesn't smell, they aren't weak, eat like crazy, I get six to seven eggs per day, and they have no other signs of trouble at all.
I isolated the ones that showed signs until nearly all of them did and I ran out of room, and also put them on Tetracycline, and gave them the maximum dosage in their water for three weeks. There was no real result, and I began to use VetRX. They showed signs of improvement some days, others they showed none.
So two months in and currently the gold comets are all showing these symptoms but the severity changes from day to day, with one day being mild or even no problems and then another being pretty bad.
The other hens show signs on various days, no signs of runny noses but just a slight gurgle for a day and then no symptoms for a day.
No signs of trauma at all, they all seem fine other than the gurgling and clear discharge.
Poop is solid, looks normal compared to the photos of healthy poop i've found.
There is no vet nearby me who treats chickens, so that isn't an option.
I just enlarged the outside run today to an area of around forty feet by fifty feet (my dogs, neighbors, and vegetable garden prevents me from letting them free range).
My question is: Could the use of straw bedding in the hen house and nest boxes, as well as an accumulation of dust and straw/weeds that they've scratched into the lower portion of their run be causing the issue? I hope it's allergies or a dust/spore issue instead of CRD.
I think the initial run size may have been a bit too small for them, but today's efforts tripled its size. I don't want to put them back onto the antibiotics if I don't have to, but I'm unsure as to what I should do.
Thanks for any advice you can give.
