Sneezing & Coughing and now a buggery nose on my Roo

[litmisredneck]

I bought a new hen about 3 months ago, separated them for about 2-3 weeks to make sure she was fine before i put her in the coop with my other babies. About 2 days after i introduced the new hen, following the 2-3 separation, she started sneezing, and I did not really think anything about it as she was healthy and so was my flock. The sneezing slowed down and with in 2 weeks of her being there with the flock all my chickens started sneezing. No coughing or runny nose or anything, just sneezing. This happened for about 2 weeks, just only sneezing but late last week early this week, they started coughing a bit so I called the vet and she told me to get Sulmet and treat them for 5 days. Today is the 4th day they are on the antibiotic and all seem well yesterday. Hardly no sneezing and no coughing at all. I got up this morning and all of them are sneezing like crazy, and my Roo is coughing and has a buggery nose. I moved him out of the coop. They are all eating and have lots of energy and drinking normal. No runny poops or anything.I put Vet Rx on there nostrils this morning and under their wings ( boy they did not like that at all ), Any idea's on what it might be. They also quit laying eggs about 5 days ago. None are egg bound and they have all their feathers, not molting yet.

 

[litmisredneck]

Anyone with any idea's? Does the treatment sound right? Could I do anything else. Help!

 

[Lescas5795]

I haven't had experience with chickens sneezing only gurgling sounds and runny noses and swollen eyes. They get so many different things that all seem to have the same symptoms. Antibiotic would be a blanket type treatment and that is what I would do. People can blast me if they want to but when we get sick or our child gets sick what do we do? Antibiotic.

 

[tiki244]

So sorry to hear about your troubles A lot of the resperatory illness' make the chickens become carriers for life. Thus they could transmit the disease to any other chickens that you hatch or buy. So many people either cull their flock or just keep a closed flock(no new ones in no one out) and treat their chickens. There is a sticky on top of the emergencies that has treatments for different diseases. https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/112920/helpful-references-links And there is the other side where some people have treated with a medicine Denagard and are reporting excellent results. This medicine is used off label as it is not approved for use in chickens in the USA. But is used in other countries. I am not sure what diseases this medicine targets. You can do a search on Denagard. I will try to find a good link. I would suggest buying some OXINE and using that. http://www.shagbarkbantams.com/oxine.htm

 

[litmisredneck]

Thanks yall. I am gonna keep them on the antibiotic for now to see if it clears up and give them lots of love!

 

[tiki244]

Using an antibiotic would be your choice. There are some that would be a more shotgun approach. Or you could get a necropsy from the state vet where you live and find out(hopefully) what the disease is.

 

[Baymule]

Have no idea. I haven't had sick chickens, so I'm not much help.

Pulling for yours to get well though.

 

[litmisredneck]

I really am not ready to bury any of them just yet lol. If one of my babies do pass i will necropsy them. Just to Roo has the snotty nose, I wondering if it had something to do with the weather change here. It went from upper 70's at night to the low 60's this week. He did not have a snotty nose yesterday.
Thanks for all the info everyone.

 

[dawg53]

It had something to do with you introducing a new hen that didnt spend enough time in quarantine away from your healthy birds. It's normally recommended that new birds are quarantined for at least 6 weeks. This gives you the time to visually inspect the new bird(s) for external parasites, worm them, and thoroughly check them over for any abnormalties. Additionally, there are respiratory diseases that have incubation times/periods greater than 3 weeks and usually show themselves (symptoms) after that time frame. Then comes the decision to treat or cull. Personally I'd cull before introducing a sick bird to my healthy flock, time can be your friend in these instances.
Here's a link for you, take a look at Infectious Coryza, Mycoplasma Gallisepticum (MG,) and Infectious Bronchitis (IB.) Keep in mind as with most diseases, there are different strains....mild to wild symptoms. Also chickens dont get colds, they get a specific disease.
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

It does sound like the new hen has brought something into your flock. Now you just need to decide to cull or treat. If you have a small backyard flock, I would continue to treat symptoms. If whatever she brought in doesn't kill any of them they will probably get better in time. But now you also know that any new bird you bring in will likely get what they have. Sorry and good luck.