Silkie thread!

[Fancychooklady]

I am absolutely brand new to silkies....and chickens. 
I decided to buy 3 silkies at an animal auction last week.   It was fun but I will never do it again, because you dont get to handle the birds before hand, there are hundreds of birds all in one place, I didnt know until after I had bought the birds that chickens can get and spread illnesses so easily and you have no idea where you get them from. 
So I did it backwards, I bought birds and then started research.  wrong move I know.   

I ended up with two silkies that are sneezing. they have been staying in my garage separated from the others. one silkie rooster that appears to be healthy besides a little bit of lice and 3 OEB hens that also appear to be healthy. 

I had no idea that chickens get sick so easily or I may not have gotten any of them. I am hoping for advice. 

The more I read, about chicken illness, the more I seem to be confused. 

I am hoping someone can give me some advice with their experience. 

1. I brought 7 birds home separated by cages but in the car together. a 1.5 hour ride. 
from everything I have read, it seems like since the two were sneezing, everyone else is going to end up diseased or sick. 

I put the sneezing silkies in the garage, but my property is small and if it is something viral, than I dont see how just separating them is going to help. they are 10 feet from the other birds just inside the garage. 

I started all the chickens on sulmet (in water) and put a cool mist humidifier with ACV in front of the sneezers. 
i am careful not to over mist them. 

I the black silkie stopped sneezing within two days but the white chicken is still sneezing and has a little mucus on his beak.  

I was lucky enough to find out who the breeder was of these two and got her number. i told her the next day that her birds were sneezing and she said "that is the problem with auctions, they can catch anything".  from what i have read, they would have had to of been sick before she took them to the auction. I am thinking about giving her back her chickens since she said she would take them. however it is a 2 hour drive to her house (one way) 


what do you guys think?  did i infect my whole flock with these two sneezing chickens?  no one else is showing signs (so far)   

should i attempt to mend them and hope they arent ->carriers<-  ?   

i have read that it is very hard to diagnose respiratory infections. 

what should I do? does anyone have experience with this? 

also....
how do you guys keep the  poo off the feather on the feet? 

This happens all too often. At least you don't have an existing flock to infect. Mycoplasma and coryza symptoms are brought on by the tress of travel and relocation, but they would have been infected before the sale. Your birds will more than likely survive but those that do will be carriers. The best you can do is treat them and run a ' closed flock '. That means no birds in , no birds out. Sorry that your first chicken experience has not been a good one.

 

[18angovem]

These arent great pictures but you try taking them with a computer web cam, but what color do you think thus silkie will turn out? He is purebred, I got him from lacrystol. When he was born he was all yellow.


He has one black dot on his wing. If you cant tell he has a grayish blue back with a yellow/white head. He has some black skin and some pink.

 

[chicken pickin]

Unfortunately that chick does not look like a purebred Silkie. Silkies have all black skin meaning legs included. Silkies do not have yellow legs and feet.

 

[kada6305]

Unfortunately that chick does not look like a purebred Silkie. Silkies have all black skin meaning legs included. Silkies do not have yellow legs and feet.

X2

 

[lightchick]

These arent great pictures but you try taking them with a computer web cam, but what color do you think thus silkie will turn out? He is purebred, I got him from lacrystol. When he was born he was all yellow.



He has one black dot on his wing. If you cant tell he has a grayish blue back with a yellow/white head. He has some black skin and some pink.

Your chick actually could be purebred, but he's not the best quality Silkie. We ordered from Ideal once and one of the Silkies had yellow skin and stuff. I'm not sure if your chick just has lighter skin or is a mix.
The chick had grey legs though.

 

[nayeli]

These arent great pictures but you try taking them with a computer web cam, but what color do you think thus silkie will turn out? He is purebred, I got him from lacrystol. When he was born he was all yellow.


He has one black dot on his wing. If you cant tell he has a grayish blue back with a yellow/white head. He has some black skin and some pink.

He is a cutie, but none of my purebred silkies have yellow fee and I haven't seen any pink skin on them either. I would guess he is crossed with somethingat least somewhere down the road... probably more silkie than not but I wouldn't say purebred. How many toes?

 

[andreacroyle]

Your flock would have been exposed both during the car ride and currently in your garage. Now you can just give extra poultry vitamins and maybe an antibiotic and wait and see. There isn't much of a reason to keep them seperated since its only by 10 feet (so they are exposed anyway) and chickens are a flock animal.
Whether you keep them or not is up to you. If they survive then depending what they have they might pass on an immunity, but they might stay carriers as well.

Honestly all I can say is NEVER do business with the breeder again. The fact that she will take back sick birds probably means her flock is already sick. I mean, I personally would not introduce a known risk like that around my chickens. Sure she might have a special quarantine area, but I personally haven't heard of breeders taking chickens back for risk reasons. If they did they would have to make that quarantine area and it would be a lot of hassle!

Yeah, It seems like even being separated by a garage isnt going to do much with a virus. I can see fungus, bacteria and parasites. I have to walk about 15 ft out of the front of my 4 car garage and then walk to the back of the garage where the duck/chicken coop is. I am going to call my vet and see what I can do and keep them separated to see if it worsens. Thanks so much for the help and I will reply back to this if there are changes.
The breeder said that she doesnt vaccinate her flock but vaccinates any new ones coming in and that she would vaccinate the sneezers when she got them...? i know human and dog vaccines dont work that way.... maybe she is as ignorant as I am...even though she has been breeding for a while.....who knows...

What is the coloring of this one? I LOVE her silver butt!!

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

And on another note, has anyone ever had a rumpless Silkie? One of the above mentioned hens hatched out 8 chicks, one of them has no tail to speak of. It's not just missing some feathers back there. In fact, it's still sporting its adorable chick down, but there isn't even a little nub where the tail would be. I can get a picture tomorrow in the day light for reference if you all would like. I thought something has seemed off about this particular chick and I had to grab it and clean up some pasty butt tonight when I checked on them, that's when I noticed the tail- or lack thereof. It seems to be healthy in every way, eating, drinking, pooping (judging by the amount clinging to its backside, thats not a problem), very active and fat as a little tick. Its a little chunk for sure, so thats what we're calling it, Chunk. I've never has any rumpless birds, so I'm not really sure if extra care is needed. I couldn't feel an oil gland either, but I've also never checked any of my chicks for their oil glands, so it may have one, just hiding out in all the fluff.

Any ideas?

Here's that weird, tail-less chick. Worst picture ever, I know, but it's the best I could do. But, this is pretty much what it looks like. Is this what people call "roach backed"? Or is it something else? It's back looks normal, there's just no nub where the tail feathers should grow.

 

[kwissykat]

Yeah, It seems like even being separated by a garage isnt going to do much with a virus. I can see fungus, bacteria and parasites. I have to walk about 15 ft out of the front of my 4 car garage and then  walk to the back of the garage where the duck/chicken coop is.   I am going to call my vet and see what I can do and keep them separated to see if it worsens. Thanks so much for the help and I will reply back to this if there are changes.
The breeder said that she doesnt vaccinate her flock but vaccinates any new ones coming in and that she would vaccinate the sneezers when she got them...?   i know human and dog vaccines dont work that way....   maybe she is as ignorant as I am...even though she has been breeding for a while.....who knows... 





What is the coloring of this one? I LOVE her silver butt!!

I'm not sure what color but she's my favorite. She follows us every where and tries to come in the house.

 

[18angovem]

Well she is not very good quality I know that. You can ask lacrystol but the pen that its parents were in was all caged up and both its parents had 5 toes and everything. It has 5 toes and is about the same size as the other ones. It body is half black. She does have showgirls in her line, could that have given her the coloring?