Sickly chickens

neener92

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I have a few coughing, sneezing, runny eyes and beaks, swollen faces and raspy sounding chickens. I lost two today one yesterday and one a few weeks ago. :/ Guineas, ducks, geese and turkey's are 100% fine. Most of the chickens are fine it's mostly the confined birds, or the ones that think they are confined. I've dewormed. Should I give everyone antibiotics? I'm freaking out! :(
 
You may be dealing with infectious coryza or MG/CRD, but getting a chicken necropsied by your state vet would be what I would do to find exactly what was infecting them. If it was definitely coryza, I would cull, although it can be treated with Di-Methox (sulfadimethoxine), Sulmet, and Erythromycin. Here is a link to finding your state vet, and also a list of common diseases--look at mycoplasma gallisepticum and infectious coryza: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/animal_dis_spec/poultry/participants.shtml
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044
 
The thing that has me stumped is it's just my chickens. Could I cull all my chickens and keep the rest of my birds, or could my other birds infect new birds? Should I go ahead and try to collect eggs from each of my birds to hatch new ones? I have some rare breeds and feel it would be difficult to buy new ones it I cull everything without hatching eggs from them.
 
What about the MG-Bac vaccine? Anyone know anything about that?
 
Wow what a dilemma you have but to make a call like
destroying all what you have I do believe the body's
of the deceased birds would need to be checked out
by a Vet first .....

I know I would defiantly be pumping the antibiotics .....

You know duck's and geese are muck stronger
then chickens .......
 
What about the MG-Bac vaccine? Anyone know anything about that?
That vaccine is fine if you have MG in your flock. It won't do anything for coryza. I feel bad for you having some rare birds, but unfortunately this happens to a lot of people. Many times people will sell birds from flocks that have been coryza or MG positive, and of course even birds showing no symptoms will be carriers. Keeping new birds quarantined for at least 30 days sometimes will prevent you from bringing in a disease, but not if they are carriers that don't show symptoms. MG is easier to treat and to vaccinate for, but you really need to get a bird tested. Your vet could probably do that with a blood test or nasal swab to send in for testing. If you read the edis link I gave in post 2, I think coryza is one disease that only affects chickens. I'm not sure about your other birds carrying it to new chickens--I would be tempted to guess "yes," but your state vet could tell you over the phone as well as advise you. Sorry about your predicament.
 
For some reason my computer isn't letting me look at the links.

Can the meat of these birds be eaten?
 
The thing that has me stumped is it's just my chickens. Could I cull all my chickens and keep the rest of my birds, or could my other birds infect new birds? Should I go ahead and try to collect eggs from each of my birds to hatch new ones? I have some rare breeds and feel it would be difficult to buy new ones it I cull everything without hatching eggs from them.
Mycoplasma or CRD can transfer to hatching eggs, so unless you get your sick chickens tested, I would not hatch chicks. I suppose people eat chickens with diseases that are not on antibiotics, but I probably wouldn't.
 

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