Sick hen. Mucus in mouth and partially swollen face

[Tiffy316]

One of my hens has some sort of slime or mucus like discharge in her mouth. She's also keeping her left eye closed, and it seems like her head, or the area around her eye, is a little swollen. I don't think she can open her left eye. I just noticed this tonight. What can I do?

 

[Tiffy316]

She seems to be doing a little better now. There's no more mucus in her beak, but she's still dealing sick and her eye is still puffy. Her sister is sick too, but she only has a puffy eye so far. One of my other hens also seems to be feeling sick. She acts like she might have some sort of respiratory illness too, but it seems to be in the first stages. I gave all of them some vet rx and washed the eyes of the hens who have puffy eyes. I'm going to try to get some more medicine tomorrow and see if that will help. It sure would be nice of I could get some input on this from someone else. I'm just doing what I can with limited information. I hope it will be enough.

 

[Aapomp831]

Does the face have an odor?
Separate these chickens immediately in case they have something contagious.

 

[Tiffy316]

I didn't smell anuthing on her face. Would placing them in a dog crate in the chicken pen be enough of a separation?

 

[Tiffy316]

I quarantined the chickens that were sick after I noticed that whatever it is seems to be spreading quickly. Despite that, I still find yet another chicken sick every day. I've lost 2 so far. The first hen who got infected died sometime today, and a fluffy little silkie that I got from a stranger passed away as well. However, the silkie wasn't sick. He always just kinda hung out, and I noticed in the last few days that he seemed to be very light like he wasn't eating much if anything. I put him with the other quarentined chickens so I could keep an eye on him yesterday, and found him dead when I checked on them tonight. As far as 8 could tell, he wasn't sick. I'm not sure why he died.

Some of my chickens do better than others. One of my roosters went from healthy to wheezing like he was going to die in just one day. My other brahma hen just has a puffy eye that seems to have gone down, and is otherwise fine. My wyandotte hen is still a little sick, but in better condition than some others. My chanteclers have caught it too, but they just have a little rattle and a cough so far.

 

[Tiffy316]

I'm not sure what caused my chickens to get sick in the first place, but I suspect it has something to do with my new roosters. I got them from a guy who breeds them a little under 2 weeks ago. He was trying to get rid of some roosters and he said that he didn't want the silkie bc it had the wrong body type, and the Cochin mix bc it was mixed breed and he only wanted pure breeds. I kept them in a segregation cage for a week before releasing them. About a day after I released them, I noticed one of my hens was sick. That was 4 days ago. Now more than half of my adults are sick. In the almost 30 years that I've been raising chickens, I've never once had one get sick, at least not like this. I can't think of any reason why this would happen. And yes, we've had extremely cold conditions and all of them had been perfectly fine. They just got sick this week and were totally healthy before that.

 

[Tiffy316]

Most of my adults are sick now. I finally got some antibiotics in the mail yesterday. I've been giving them vet rx and antibiotics mixed with water. Hopefully, the antibiotics will help. All I can do is wait and see since I've been dealing with this alone. It would have been nice to get at least some help so I could know what I'm dealing with and help them better.

 

[Jeninoz]

Hi Tiffy,
Sorry about your hard times. I am fairly new to chicken keeping too and seem to have been learning all the hard lessons one by one. I did also get a sickness in my chickens after I got one new one and even though I quarrantined them, when I put her with the others they all got sick. I lost half. Recommend taking to a vet asap to get a swab and they will tell you what it is and give you the treatments. Depends on where you live, the swab testing might be free via dept of ag.

 

[Tiffy316]

Huh, I guess there must be something going around. Anyway, I haven't been able to find a vet who will look at chickens anyway.

 

[Tiffy316]

Besides, they'd probably just say antibiotics or culling. Finding chicken antibiotics online is almost impossible. The closes thing I've found is either for small birds, cows, or something that's basically herbs or essential oils.