Respiratory Problems Help

[Eggcessive]

Sorry for your loss. Keep the Marans body cold on ice in a cooler wrapped in 2 clean trash bags. What state are you in? They can test for all respiratory diseases. Hopefully, it is infectious bronchitis, and not MG, but mild MG could look similar. Infectious bronchitis can make cariers for 5 months to a year after recovery, so not as bad a diagnosis as MG.

 

[HargroveOutdoors]

A chick was taken for necropsy on Wednesday. Preliminary results have come back with no definite diagnosis yet. Organs were "unremarkable" but the kidneys did contain two smooth gray nodules. Awaiting results for a histopathology, MG, MS, and an aerobic culture.

 

[HargroveOutdoors]

Sorry for your loss. Keep the Marans body cold on ice in a cooler wrapped in 2 clean trash bags. What state are you in? They can test for all respiratory diseases. Hopefully, it is infectious bronchitis, and not MG, but mild MG could look similar. Infectious bronchitis can make cariers for 5 months to a year after recovery, so not as bad a diagnosis as MG.

Sorry for the late reply, I don't think my notifications are working correctly. Definitely hoping for something other than MG.

 

[HargroveOutdoors]

Results came back positive this morning for mycoplasma synoviae. Now waiting for the state vet to contact me as this is a reportable disease for my state. Learned a lesson the hard way. I won’t be buying from backyard breeders anymore.

 

[HargroveOutdoors]

Just to add. This hobby farm seemed to be a good small farm on FB. When I got there and there were a couple hundred chicks in brooders. I should have had my first clue that this was sketchy. I contacted them when symptoms were first apparent and they were adamant that none of their birds were sick and that the chicks must have gotten sick with me. This disease has a 10-21 day incubation period. The chicks first started showing the respiratory symptoms at about two weeks. They were tested at 3 weeks. Positive results at 4 weeks.
Now, is it impossible that they picked up MS from my home? Absolutely not, but I’ve only got three outside birds. The two new ones came from a close friend who purchased from a hatchery. I believe her when she says they’ve not been ill. Further, There’s been plenty of incubation time for Godfrey to have been exposed and become sick if they were. Further the chicks have had no contact with the outside birds and there has been no equipment sharing.
The diagnostic veterinarian who did the necropsy said this is the typical progression of symptoms from chicks from flocks with mycoplasma. Specifically she stated that the most likely thing to have happened is that I picked up already infected chicks and advised me not to purchase from backyard flocks again. I contacted the farm again today and they are denying any possibility that this disease is established in their flock. I haven’t asked for money back. I haven’t accused them of selling me sick birds. I simply tried to inform them that there is a disease among the birds they sold me that they should be aware of so that they can take precautionary measures. Measures not only for their farm, but so that other people don’t have the possibility of bringing sick birds back to their flocks. Still a flat out denial. This isn’t the reaction of a reputable breeder and it’s really sad that someone is ok with potentially infecting who knows how many backyard flocks with a serious disease.

 

[HargroveOutdoors]

Update: I decided to go look at the farms fb page. While there I found two pictures of chicks exhibiting the nasal swelling which causes the eyelid to elongate like in my marans chick I posted here. A tell tell symptom of mycoplasma. These pictures are from June 11, after I purchased chicks and obvious proof that she had symptoms which she is denying. Some of her chicks pictured with symptoms are the same batch of marans chicks I purchased mine from. They are pictured with symptoms on June 11. This is around the time that my marans also started to show symptoms. My marans were the 1st to show symptoms and had the worst symptoms. I won’t post the screenshots just because I’m not sure if I can legally do so, but I will be reporting them to the livestock inspector.
On the upside, I feel like I can be reasonably confident that the disease came from her farm. I’m crossing fingers that my biosecurity was good enough to save my outside birds. They have not yet shown any symptoms. I hope to keep it that way and they pass inspection.

 

[Eggcessive]

Sorry that the testing came back as MS. The breeder is obviously in business to make a lot of money. People like that are clueless about illnesses.

 

[HargroveOutdoors]

Sorry that the testing came back as MS. The breeder is obviously in business to make a lot of money. People like that are clueless about illnesses.

Thanks, I hate that it did too. It’s really infuriating that the breeder is either completely overlooked illness in her flock, or is lying about it. Worse, she obviously sells a lot of birds, just from her fb. There’s no telling how many flocks are infected. It’s also likely that many people don’t even know they are. Birds seem to have a cold then get better so people don’t question. I almost didn’t.

 

[Punkybrewster]

Im so sorry youre dealing with this. I had to cull 2 flocks and start all over again because i bought sick chicks and combined them with my newly hatched chicks. It spread like wildfire. My own fault. Hard lesson learned.

Some folks decide to just keep a closed flock when their birds are infected. Most birds do recover but will always be carriers. Even passed through their eggs.

Eggs are safe to eat but any new birds will become infected.

For those that do not sell hatching eggs or chicks and just want their own barnyard flock for their own consumption, practicing biosecurity and not bringing in any new birds allows them to keep their flock instead of culling them all.

But any stressors can bring up another respitory flair up which some are willing to deal with.

 

[Punkybrewster]

Oxine is good to use to sanitize the coop and anything that has come in contact with the infected birds.

A ton of other uses too.