Sick Chickens

[The_Rooster_84]

Hey everyone, been using this site as a reference for a couple months, but sadly had to register for bad reasons. Yesterday Sept 27th I believe, I noticed my 'speckled' hen was gurgling, runny nose and just laying in a nest box at dusk... I found it odd and watched her and she seemed sick so I quarentined her... She had a gurgling noise, not energetic and a 'smell'... its been 10 years since I've had chickens and the last batch I had on my old farm in WA a guy told me some of mine were sick, which had a runny nose and 'smell' and gave them shots... However I soon moved and sold them to him so i'm unaware of the outcome... Anyhow this looks to be the same case, fast forward today and no improvement so I ran into seminole feed on my way to work and got duramycin-10 and VETRX... And while feeding the others tonight I noticed two of my 'new' plymouth rocks I purchased from a woman 3-4 weeks ago now have a runny nose,a serama I got from her, and my serama hen I've had for 3 months and whose been very healthy... My, what I feel is show quality serama pair are fine and secluded in a seperate cage... and a few others breeds are fine thus far... Any ideas of what it may be? I got a couple from reading... And I don't want to have to destroy any of these birds... I've got 2 two week old baby seramas from my show pair in my house now along with a Serama Silkie mix thats a week old and two more due sunday... I'm being very OCD about spreading so i'm washing down well before coming near them after being around the sick birds... I started putting raw apple cidar vinegar in their water tonight... and am using medicated starter feed...
Is it possible for me to contract this or spread it to my chicks?

Sorry for the long novel here just look for some intelligent advise and this place seems full of it! thank you

 

[shazza07]

if it is psittacosis then that can stay in concrete forever if you have that in any of your choock pens, this is also highly contagious you can contract it and get very sick yourself, im not sure you can pass it back to a bird unless its all over your clothes, this can be treated with doxycycline hydrochloride it must be dosed for 45 days followed by a course of probiotics, probably best to get a diagnosis from the vet.

good luck i hope your birds are ok

 

[juliawitt]

I saw in your post that you brought in birds from someone else's flock. Did you quarentine for 30 days? If not, try to make quarentining a rule if you bring in new birds. Even though the new birds look find, they have been around different bacteria,etc. that your birds have no immunity against. Plus, bringing in any new birds will stress your flock, causing a lowered immunity and a greater susceptability to disease. There are some great links on chicken disease in this forum. I like your initial choices of antibiotic. Give it to everyone, because if 2 or 3 are sick, the rest soon will be. Sorry your having problems and good luck!

 

[The_Rooster_84]

psittacosis seems unlikely but not ruled out.. do chickens get just a common cold type of illnesses?

 

[The_Rooster_84]

The original speckled hen isn't any better and I don't believe she's eating or drinking.. so I gave it the treated water with a eye dropper. She seems weaker and seems to be breathing thru the mouth. The rest seem fine just a runny nose and the ones I mentioned that aren't sick are still fine.

 

[The_Rooster_84]

Speckled hen seemed abit better today, had more pep in her. Her droppings are green and runny and when I picked her up after she went I felt something slimy and gross on my hand, a green nasty worm so looks like that may be the problem.. any suggestions?