Sick Jersey Giant.

[LunarRayne]

She is about 7 weeks old. We let them out last night for an hour or so and the put them up. It was the second time to do this.
This morning I noticed she looked odd, but no strange sounds and she was eating and drinking.
My husband and I went to check just now and she looked strange enough for him to worry.
She walks and eats and drinks.
He poop looks normal.
She is making a strange sound. I have never heard her make noises and this one is different from all the rest of the chickens I have.
She is sneezing, but not constantly. Just every now and then.
He chest sounds razzy. Definitely not right.
She looks like she may be molting, but that wouldn't account for the strange chest sounds and the sneezing.

Any thoughts?

 

[Erica]

Hi LunarRayne,

it could be that the slight stress of being moved outdoors briefly has let an underlying condition erupt. Or it could be that she caught a cold or something from wild birds. Unfortunately the germ that causes chronic respiratory disease often presents like this (when a bird is slightly stressed), but there are other conditions that bring on sneezing, for instance lack of vitamin A, found in green feed.

I would confine her separately where i can keep a close eye on her, make sure all the birds are on a good diet, watch for any mucus from the nostrils, and see if the chest issue resolves in a few days. Look out for any other symptoms like diarrhea as well. I also wouldn't put any of these young birds with other birds just yet, in case the little ones are carriers (some germs will pass to the chicks via the eggs). If you hatched them from your own eggs then it's not such an issue as anything that came via the eggs would already be in the parent flock.

It could also be time to do some reading on MG (mycoplasma gallisepticum, the main bug behind chronic respiratory disease or CRD), just in case this is going to be a bit of a saga. Hopefully it's not.

Good luck.

Erica

EDIT: just thought of something else. If she first went on the ground 5 days ago then she's due to show signs of coccidiosis if this was her first exposure. Sometimes that little bit of a cocci challenge can bring out underlying things like CRD. You may find treating her for subclinical cocci (even though she has normal droppings) might help her through the respiratory thing as well. Just a thought.

 

[LunarRayne]

They have been outside for a while. I have had to limit their green grass lately. We had a pecking order incident that was really bad. Also we had a chicken hawk incident. They sleep in the coop with all my other birds and have for a while now. None of the others are showing signs. We have about 60 birds, so I am hoping they are not all about to get sick.

 

[seminolewind]

If she's not the only one who gets it, treat everyone , probably with Tylan. It sounds respiratory.
You might want to treat her anyway.

If she's the only one, I think I would assume some liquid went down the wrong pipe For a pneumonia like that, I don't know offhand what to treat with, probably Tylan, or maybe someone else can recommend something.

Does she look sick or do you think she's getting worse?