Let me preface this by saying that we are new to having chickens and are basically learning as we go (thanks, esp to all of you great folks here). About 6 months ago, a friend gave us 8 five days old chicks so we put together a brooder and started to work building a coop for them. Several weeks later we discovered that 3 of them were roosters. We gave one roo away to a friend, then sold another at the local chicken swap yesterday. Our 5 hens have all recently started laying and are sooo lovely and sweet...and CLEAN and we just love them to pieces! My husband had always shot down the idea of us keeping chickens because he said they'd smell, but when this opportunity came along, he surprised us all when he decided to give them the benefit of doubt...so YAY... we got our chickens. I clean their coop every morning, removing the previous night's poop, and raking our their dirt bath area every week as well as their run because I never want to hear him say, "I told you so!". So anyway, that's the backstory
So, as I mentioned, we sold our lovely Roo yesterday at the swap (which is held monthly at a local feed store), and it was heartbreaking to let him go but our hens were terribly outnumbered and we really only needed one. So Charlie Harper had to go, and Romeo got to stay with his girls. When we arrived at the sale, someone snatched him up before we could even get set up, so we didn't really have a chance to get use to the idea of him leaving us...daughter (13) and I both started crying. To cheer us up, we decided that since we were there and seeing all sorts of lovely hens, we'd go ahead and add to our small flock. We looked around and ended up buying a 2 month old Delaware, a 2 month old Andalusian Splash from one guy, and then 2 two month old Marans (one a Blue Copper, the other a Black Copper) from another guy and headed back to our car.
When we got in the car and the windows were up, we quickly noticed that they STUNK to high heaven! The minute we got home, we got on the forums and read how to wash a chicken and promptly cleaned them up. My daughter noticed when she was washing the little Blue Copper Maran, that her nose was a little 'boogery' (her words and she rinse/scratched it off. Might have been dirt or poop, I was thinking. Anyway, we washed them (bobbing up and down gently with their heads out of the water) in a tub of warm water with Adams flea and tick (just in case they were buggy), and then rinsed them in another tub of warm water with a bit of vinegar, then patted dry with a towel. We even scrubbed their feet with a soft toothbrush. So I was VERY surprised when I went out to check on their food and water a few hours later, and noticed that they were STILL smelly!
I posted on the local chicken swap forum, asking for advice about perhaps what to wash them with to get rid of the smell...thinking that it was because maybe they'd been kept closely confined and in a dirty coop, but a couple of women said they think one or more of them are probably sick and that I should quarantee them. Well, we had already kept them separate because they are younger than our established flock and I wanted everyone to have a chance to get use to each other first. We had purchased a large wire kennel on the way home, put food/water and a roost in it, and they've been in that since then, but INSIDE the other chickens' run. I also let them 'free range' inside the run for a couple of hours today while the other chickens were free ranging out in our yard.
Sooo....do you think one or more are sick?? Someone mentioned coryza? What should I DO? Is it already too late to protect the ones that might NOT be sick (if any are), and how about the rest of my birds? I couldnt' wait until tomorrow so I just went out there and got the little Marans out of the crate and put them in a separate kennel. I smelled them and it does seem like the smell is coming from their head area and not their body and I do notice a very slight, clear discharge from their nostrils. The other two hens (which were from a different person) seems fine. But are they?If the Marans DO have coryza or something else, have the Delaware and Andalusian hens already been contaminated by being in the same crate since the sale yesterday? Oy, what should I do folks? OH, and do I need to muck out the run tomorrow where they had run around in a bit ....and oh my, I hope the rest of the flock hasn't been contaminated, too. I don't think I'm going to sleep tonight
h e l p !
Denise
So, as I mentioned, we sold our lovely Roo yesterday at the swap (which is held monthly at a local feed store), and it was heartbreaking to let him go but our hens were terribly outnumbered and we really only needed one. So Charlie Harper had to go, and Romeo got to stay with his girls. When we arrived at the sale, someone snatched him up before we could even get set up, so we didn't really have a chance to get use to the idea of him leaving us...daughter (13) and I both started crying. To cheer us up, we decided that since we were there and seeing all sorts of lovely hens, we'd go ahead and add to our small flock. We looked around and ended up buying a 2 month old Delaware, a 2 month old Andalusian Splash from one guy, and then 2 two month old Marans (one a Blue Copper, the other a Black Copper) from another guy and headed back to our car.
When we got in the car and the windows were up, we quickly noticed that they STUNK to high heaven! The minute we got home, we got on the forums and read how to wash a chicken and promptly cleaned them up. My daughter noticed when she was washing the little Blue Copper Maran, that her nose was a little 'boogery' (her words and she rinse/scratched it off. Might have been dirt or poop, I was thinking. Anyway, we washed them (bobbing up and down gently with their heads out of the water) in a tub of warm water with Adams flea and tick (just in case they were buggy), and then rinsed them in another tub of warm water with a bit of vinegar, then patted dry with a towel. We even scrubbed their feet with a soft toothbrush. So I was VERY surprised when I went out to check on their food and water a few hours later, and noticed that they were STILL smelly!
I posted on the local chicken swap forum, asking for advice about perhaps what to wash them with to get rid of the smell...thinking that it was because maybe they'd been kept closely confined and in a dirty coop, but a couple of women said they think one or more of them are probably sick and that I should quarantee them. Well, we had already kept them separate because they are younger than our established flock and I wanted everyone to have a chance to get use to each other first. We had purchased a large wire kennel on the way home, put food/water and a roost in it, and they've been in that since then, but INSIDE the other chickens' run. I also let them 'free range' inside the run for a couple of hours today while the other chickens were free ranging out in our yard.
Sooo....do you think one or more are sick?? Someone mentioned coryza? What should I DO? Is it already too late to protect the ones that might NOT be sick (if any are), and how about the rest of my birds? I couldnt' wait until tomorrow so I just went out there and got the little Marans out of the crate and put them in a separate kennel. I smelled them and it does seem like the smell is coming from their head area and not their body and I do notice a very slight, clear discharge from their nostrils. The other two hens (which were from a different person) seems fine. But are they?If the Marans DO have coryza or something else, have the Delaware and Andalusian hens already been contaminated by being in the same crate since the sale yesterday? Oy, what should I do folks? OH, and do I need to muck out the run tomorrow where they had run around in a bit ....and oh my, I hope the rest of the flock hasn't been contaminated, too. I don't think I'm going to sleep tonight
h e l p !
Denise