Possible respiratory illness in pullet & comb color change in cockerel. help! :(

[wildmtnhoney]

Hi all. New at the chicken game. This is my first experience with sick chickens, so any advice/help would be greatly appreciated!

Two days ago when I went out to do the morning feeding, I noticed my oldest pullet (Rosemary, WPR cross, approx. 6 months) had one of her eyes closed with a clear, runny discharge coming from it. Our WPR cockerel, Captain, also had an eye like this, but his didn't look quite so bad. I bought some Vetericyn eye wash and have been treating both of them with it, twice a day, since we noticed it. I thought maybe it was just some dust irritation from the fresh bedding we'd just put down, or perhaps they'd gotten into a scuffle and scratched their eyes.

Captain's eye looks significantly better today, if not completely healed, but I've noticed that his big, beautiful single comb seems to be fading into a dark red to black on the blade part. Could this be associated with illness? Stress? Other than that, he seems perfectly happy and is his normal, bossy, active self.

Rosemary has actually gotten worse since we initially noticed her runny eyes. While her eyes have cleared up a little bit, today she's been wheezing, coughing, and sneezing. It seems that at times she is really struggling to take in air. She's not quite the sweet, curious little lady she usually is, and has no interest in feeding or drinking, as far as I've noticed. I read good things on here about Tylan 50 for treating respiratory disease, so I went on a hot pursuit for it this morning with no luck. Literally every store in my county that carries such things is completely sold out of it.

I went to the next town over to a highly-recommended local feed store and bought a pack of the water soluble Oxytetracycline HCI per the advice of the shopkeeper and a couple of the other patrons. They explained the dosage to me and that it should help clear things up for her within a week or so.

I came home and mixed 2.5 tablespoons of the powered meds in with a gallon of good fresh water. Captain and the others have partaken without issue. The only problem is, like I said, Rosemary has no interest in drinking.

My husband is going to help me quarantine her this evening, and give her a separate waterer with the antibiotic in it to encourage her to drink.

I'm just really nervous and stressing pretty hard about this. I want my babies to be OK. Do you think Captain's comb color change could have anything to do with an illness he and Rosemary may have? Am I overthinking things!? Hahaha.

Thanks y'all! <3

 

[wildmtnhoney]

Just to let anyone checking out this thread know, my flock has been on the Oxytetracycline for about 9 days now. Tomorrow will be their last day on it. The respiratory issue ran its course through all but two of my birds (I only have 8, haha), but I can tell that the antibiotic really helped. Everyone is doing great now--no more runny eyes or noses, no more coughing and sneezing, no more fatigue. They're all really active and silly, back to their old selves, and have been for about four days now.

I think whatever got to them was created by a few factors that I didn't know could cause respiratory problems until studying them more closely over the last week:

-stress associated with being in a new place (I've only had them for a few weeks)
-stress associated with introducing new birds to the flock two weekends in a row (I didn't know that these things require an adjustment period...oops!)
-using the wrong kind of bedding (we were using wheat straw, but now use low-dust pine flakes)
-weather change (we're beginning our slow descent into fall here in N. Alabama, complete with lots of erratic rain showers and all-over-the-place temperature changes)

I'm so relieved that every body is doing well now...maybe we'll get our first egg soon! (I know we can't eat any for a few weeks after administering the antibiotic.)

Oh, and on the topic of Captain's color-changing comb, it seems as though it acts as kind of a mood ring and had nothing to do with the respiratory illness. I know that might sound completely crazy, but when he's in the coop or run and there's not a lot of activity going on, his comb is completely solid bright red. But when a couple of the pullets get out of sight when free ranging and he's trying to find them, if one of the cats come slinking by, if the neighbor's dog is barking, if we bring out some particularly tasty table scraps, or if anything even remotely exciting or out-of-the-ordinary happens, the blade part of his comb starts to turn dark red to black. It turns bright red again when things calm down. Kind of weird, kind of cool.

Hope this helps some other beginners like myself!

 

[chicapee]

Just to let anyone checking out this thread know, my flock has been on the Oxytetracycline for about 9 days now. Tomorrow will be their last day on it. The respiratory issue ran its course through all but two of my birds (I only have 8, haha), but I can tell that the antibiotic really helped. Everyone is doing great now--no more runny eyes or noses, no more coughing and sneezing, no more fatigue. They're all really active and silly, back to their old selves, and have been for about four days now. 

I think whatever got to them was created by a few factors that I didn't know could cause respiratory problems until studying them more closely over the last week:

-stress associated with being in a new place (I've only had them for a few weeks)
-stress associated with introducing new birds to the flock two weekends in a row (I didn't know that these things require an adjustment period...oops!)
-using the wrong kind of bedding (we were using wheat straw, but now use low-dust pine flakes)
-weather change (we're beginning our slow descent into fall here in N. Alabama, complete with lots of erratic rain showers and all-over-the-place temperature changes)

I'm so relieved that every body is doing well now...maybe we'll get our first egg soon! (I know we can't eat any for a few weeks after administering the antibiotic.)

Oh, and on the topic of Captain's color-changing comb, it seems as though it acts as kind of a mood ring and had nothing to do with the respiratory illness. I know that might sound completely crazy, but when he's in the coop or run and there's not a lot of activity going on, his comb is completely solid bright red. But when a couple of the pullets get out of sight when free ranging and he's trying to find them, if one of the cats come slinking by, if the neighbor's dog is barking, if we bring out some particularly tasty table scraps, or if anything even remotely exciting or out-of-the-ordinary happens, the blade part of his comb starts to turn dark red to black. It turns bright red again when things calm down. Kind of weird, kind of cool. 

Hope this helps some other beginners like myself! 

It sounds like you have done a marvelous job taking care of your flock. Well done! I am sorry that no one managed to get back to you.

 

[wildmtnhoney]

Thanks so much for the kind words, chicapee! I'm really pleased with how everything turned out. It was a good learning experience, but yeah...I was kind of disappointed that I didn't get any advice out of my post. Oh well! Cool to see you are in Pass Christian! I have some friends-of-the-family that live there

 

[chicapee]

Thanks so much for the kind words, chicapee! I'm really pleased with how everything turned out. It was a good learning experience, but yeah...I was kind of disappointed that I didn't get any advice out of my post. Oh well! Cool to see you are in Pass Christian! I have some friends-of-the-family that live there

It's a nice place.