sneezing chickens, are they ill?

[dean26]

Hello to everyone, I recently purchased 2 cross breed bantam hens from a local farm for £10 each they are 4months old, Point of lay?, since they have arrived they have both been sneezing, more than average I would say, one of the hens has purple scaly leg spray on her aswell. Im feeling very disheartened,especially as I have 8 fluffy bundles of joy in my spare room that are nearly 3 weeks old and havnt caused me any issues, I shall be very worried to mix them when the time does eventually come.

Can anyone advice me what to do? Should i try and contact a vet? The hens arnt lethagic, there eating well (apart from the layers pellets which they havnt touched since arriving) they eat a handful of corn in afternoon, half a slice of bread in the morning, crumbled up.

They arnt hunched up etc, although as I said in another post, one of the hens where I got them from didnt look to happy and was hunched up a little with ruffled feathers. Is 4 months young for scaly leg? And although she has purple dye on her leg from the shop, will she need vaseline on her legs or something else?

Ive attached photos of the two beautiful bantams for anyone interested. Many Many thanks to anyone who reads this and replies. I understand people are v busy but I never seem to get many replies on here at all!

Kind regards
Dean

 

[Eggcessive]

Sneezing could be nothing serious or one of the many terrible respiratory diseases, and scaley leg mites are hard to clear up. I would take them back and ask for my money, honestly. If they won't give it back, I would leave the chickens there anyway. You could treat them, but I would not expose them to my other chicks.

 

[realsis]

If you don't want to give them back you can treat them but they still might be carriers of disease sadly. If you choose to treat them you can use tylan50 its good for respiratory illness. Small birds you would use 1/4 cc given in the breast muscle once daily for 5 days
But if you don't want to risk it with your chicks then sadly you will likely have to return them.

 

[dean26]

I dont want to return them as they are already pretty special to me. I also hate needles so wont be injecting them myself. They seem pretty healthy otherwise apart from the scaly leg. Im going to ring a vet tomorrow and ask for help. Its worrying me sick what with my little chicks aswell. I think it would be very stressful to take them to the nearest poultry specialist vet and very expensive to get a vet to visit my house. I thought chickens were supposed to be healthy on the whole!

I kept chickens for a many years a few years ago and only lost them to old age! Perhaps I was very lucky.

Many thanks for replies, I hope to hear from anyone else.

Dean