My Craigslist chickens have a cold

[pslynch]

I would appreciate if someone could help me. I got 6 chicks on Craigslist. 2of them are silkies the other 4are black I forgot the breed... When I picked them up they were 1week old and the woman said that one had a cold and gave me tetracycline to put in their water...now 2have diarrhea. I have obviously no clue about chickens... I got a big plastic see through box and cut a hole in the lid . They have newspaper (initially we had cedar shavings until i read that they are poisonous) a dry feeder And a water feeder. They have a 50 watt heat lamp that I had left over from our frogs cage.... Am I missing something? I am nervous about them.....

 

[PNWChicky]

Well i'm no expert iv'e had chickens for a grand total of 3 weeks. Maybe try putting some probiotics in their water. I put the safe-a-chick kind in my water when they have runny poo and it seems to help. Also make sure there's enough ventilation in their box. How old are they? They recommend them being 95 degrees the first week of life and then decreasing it 5 degrees each week. I never actually had a thermometer and took the temp but i watched them for a bit and adjusted the heat based on what they were doing. If there all huddle under it then they are probably too cold and if they are all on the very edge of the brooder then could be too hot. Mine sleep by the light and then get up and walk all around the brooder. I use a red light based on research i did that said they are less likely to pick at each other and it's suppose to help them be calmer. Who knows if the color of light has anything to do with anything, lots of people on hear have opinions about either the red or white light. Well that's my two cents, and once again i'm no expert definitely a newbie. Just have done a bunch of research.

 

[pslynch]

Thanks that helps...guess I got to read more....

 

[MySuburbanLife]

There's no such thing as a chicken with a cold-- if your birds are showing cold symptoms, they might have a respiratory infection like mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG). I know about MG because I too bought some chickens from a woman on Craigslist that were infected, and the infection spread to my whole flock. I ended up treating with an antibiotic rather than culling them, but because MG is uncurable I've had to close my flock-- no new birds come in, none of my birds go out.

Search through the diseases subforum for more information... I hope I'm wrong and your girls end up fine, but MG can be a serious problem.