New chicks sneezing. Need advice on treatment.

[hoosiergal40]

Hi. One week ago today I bought 6 chicks from a local farm store. Four are pullets that are a little over a week old and the other two are 3 week old bantams. They all seemed healthy enough but now they are sneezing alot. These sneezes sound very wet. I haven't noticed any discharge from their nostrils or any liquid coming from their beaks when they sneeze. They are very active, and eating & drinking well. My question is how much medicine should I be mixing in their drinking water? I have Tetracycline powder. When I brought them home I was putting a vitamin & electrolyte powder in their water but stopped after 4 days. I then started the Tetracycline at a rate of 1/2 tsp per half gallon of water. They started the sneezing yesterday. I don't want to overdose them, but not giving them enough antibiotic is bad too. I mix up a half gallon at a time and change their water every three hours during the day. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Madam Hens]

Couple ?'s:
1. Are you feeding medicated starter or non-medicated?
2. Are they under a heat lamp? Temp around 90 degrees. If they are active and running all around the temp is correct. If they huddle they are cold, stay totall along the outskirts of the light they are hot.
3. I guess I'm not sure why you treated the water? I have hatched and raised chicks over the years and never tretaed the water on newly hatched chicks.

The other thing is to make sure that they are not in a draft.

 

[California_chickie]

Are they on pine shavings? I recently had a little sneezing episode with one of my chicks & totally panicked. Got antibiotics, ran around asking my CBFF (chicken best friend forever) what to do...first thing she said was check the shavings. The chick sneezed lightly for 2 days (not wet, no discharge) then got better. A few days afterwards, my boyfriend admitted that he had cleaned the brooder while I was at work to be nice! Added the wrong shavings. Now my littlest chicks are on paper towels or puppy pads. Problem solved.

Oh, and if you're giving them Tetracycline, remember to give them some pro-biotics too if they are strong enough-- the meds constipate them & kill all the bacteria, even the good stuff. You'll be trading sneezing for pasty butt & lethargy! A little bit of ACV in the water works for me, even a tiny amount of watered down natural yogurt for the older ones, but I am in no way an expert!

 

[Nicole01]

I've have some very sick chicks. Poly vi sol vitamins without iron down the beak 2-3 times a day does wonders. Also I gave them probios and last years 2nd flock was treated with amoxicillian. One of my chicks was so sick she was with me for 3 days. She could not move, I had her wrapped in a towel on a heat pad before putting her under the lamp. I was afraid the others would pick at her. Her feathers were fluffed, she was doing the yawning motion every 1/2 second and sneezing every 2 seconds. She infected 2 of the others, but they were not nearly as bad since I was treating them. They all lived.