Tetracycline for sneezing pullet??

[beylabean]

i just brought home 4 pullets (approx 8weeks old) and one of them is sneezing (actually had mucous come out with a sneeze) and she's pretty lethargic. I have kept these 4 away from my flock but don't know if tetracycline is what I should be using?

I am in Canada if that makes a difference, we can't get some of the same things in our local co-ops and tractor supply!

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

There are several respiratory illnesses/diseases that can cause sneezing and mucous.
Is there any way you can have her tested?
Most antibiotics will treat the symptoms, but will not necessarily "cure" the disease depending on what it is. Also be aware "most" respiratory illnesses are contagious and make those exposed (even though some never show symptoms) will be carriers for life.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044

 

[beylabean]

There are several respiratory illnesses/diseases that can cause sneezing and mucous.
Is there any way you can have her tested?
Most antibiotics will treat the symptoms, but will not necessarily "cure" the disease depending on what it is. Also be aware "most" respiratory illnesses are contagious and make those exposed (even though some never show symptoms) will be carriers for life.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044

Thanks for the info. I contacted the breeder and am returning the girls just to be safe!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Thanks for the info. I contacted the breeder and am returning the girls just to be safe!

Wondering if the breeder is already aware of a problem since they are willing to accept the return of "sick birds"?
Did they give any indication of what the birds may have?

 

[as110]

I have my hens on day 3 tetracycline. The bag says give it for 3-5 days. I want to believe there is improvement, but every time I think they sound better, the next time they gurgle worse so I don't know if it is working. Should I continue the tetracycline over 5 days until the symptoms disappear? Or stop on day 5? Then what?
These two have been snotty for a week. They are isolated and otherwise eat and drink everything, look out of the quaranteen with interest and they look like they want to go free. They are not lethargic. They lay eggs and do chicken things, the eyes are clear, they shake their heads to clear the nose, and I don't see any other mucous around the beak. Crops are full in the evening and empty by the morning so not sour crop. I didn't smell their heads because I wear a mask but the poop is stinky. I gave probiotics today and I feed their eggs back fried and spiced with black pepper.
Anything else I can do?
There is no vet in this area that will test a hen. Everyone is treating their own.
I hope they won't have to go into the soup pot. They lay nice big eggs.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I have my hens on day 3 tetracycline. The bag says give it for 3-5 days. I want to believe there is improvement, but every time I think they sound better, the next time they gurgle worse so I don't know if it is working. Should I continue the tetracycline over 5 days until the symptoms disappear? Or stop on day 5? Then what?
These two have been snotty for a week. They are isolated and otherwise eat and drink everything, look out of the quaranteen with interest and they look like they want to go free. They are not lethargic. They lay eggs and do chicken things, the eyes are clear, they shake their heads to clear the nose, and I don't see any other mucous around the beak. Crops are full in the evening and empty by the morning so not sour crop. I didn't smell their heads because I wear a mask but the poop is stinky. I gave probiotics today and I feed their eggs back fried and spiced with black pepper.
Anything else I can do?
There is no vet in this area that will test a hen. Everyone is treating their own.
I hope they won't have to go into the soup pot. They lay nice big eggs.

I would follow the labeling on your package - if it says 3-5days, then go the 5days and stop.
If they have a respiratory illness, antibiotics will only treat any secondary infections. Since there's not a lot of improvement, they may have a virus like Infectious Bronchitis or something else - no way to know without testing. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044
When using antibiotics, eggs should be thrown away and not be consumed by anything - this is called an egg withdrawal period. Look at your package labeling for any withdrawal times, if there aren't any, then a general guideline for Tetracyclines should be followed for withdrawal - 14days after the last dosage is most likely sufficient.

It's good that you have them quarantined - depending on what your goals are for chicken keeping - having birds that may be carriers of an illness may not be in your best interest. If you are keeping a closed flock - then there shouldn't be too much of a worry, except monitoring the flock and treating as symptoms appear.

 

[as110]

I want to keep hens for laying, and eat them when they stop laying. However I don't want to eat hens when they are sick.
Once they are treated and symptoms disappear, are they considered good enough to eat? I would never know which ones are carriers since we can't see that. It is possible they all are. They came from a farm, I did not hatch them. I suck at hatching in the incubator and pretty disappointed with it because we keep losing power. I am trying for the 4th time and already we lost power on day one and surge on day 2, I am pretty sure this one will be a flop too. If only we had brooding hens I would love to have more chickens but I won't buy any more hens from farms or auctions.

What do people do with sick hens at the first sign of illness? Cull and what? Do they eat it? Do they burn/bury it? I just wanted eggs and meat. I am pretty bummed today about keeping hens. No vet in the area that will deal with hens.

One rooster died last month. My guess is coccidiosis. A few weeks ago we ate a hen because she stopped laying and we were constantly treating legs and she was limping, and a rooster that we were not fond of who was causing too much stress for the hens and the other rooster. We didn't eat the feet because it looked like it had scaly leg mites. We have 3 more roosters lined up because we have so many, 4 of the 5 hatched this summer are roosters :0(
So at this rate they are going fast with no replacement options, this is no fun.

Can we eat the carriers?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

If birds are not showing symptoms of illness and you have followed withdrawal times for antibiotic use, then the meat and eggs are probably o.k. That said, I'm not a meat expert so inspection of internal organs would need to be made before you decide what meat is good to consume and the meat/eggs would need to properly handled and cooked.

Canada may have different standards - this link is for the US - it may help you when you butcher your birds - this covers a few diseases and what the internal organs may look like along with what would be considered condemned, etc. http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/t0756e/T0756E08.htm

 

[as110]

Thank you for the link. Unfortunately it didn't make me smarter because none of the diseases listed are spot on for these hens.
There is no drainage from the eyes, swelling around the head, abnormal poop, skin irregularities, sores, appetite or behavioural problems. They simply look and act fine less the rattling breathing. By now I would have expected other signs but nothing. They eat like pigs, drink a lot, poop just right, lay eggs, want to run and scratch all over the place and talk like hens, they are social and interested in what's going on around them. There seems to be a little improvement at day 5, one of them doesn't sound wet anymore, the other one is intermittently sounding wet, not all the time so maybe they are getting better.
As for eating the meat, I will use the descriptions in the link (thanks for that) when we are processing them, however if anyone drops all of a sudden and we find one dead, we are not interested in eating a sick hen. In the interest of chicken science we might just open and look what we find inside if they die, but we won't kill them if they recover. They lay nice eggs which is why we keep them.
Bummed !

 

[as110]

I am so sad now. I have been looking for answers and everywhere I went they said to kill the flock. It is easier to kill 10.000 chickens than to let the disease spread. I can't do that. There are only 2 hens sick and they are isolated. There was one 2 days ago that had mucous in the nostrils but she got better and today I can't tell which hen it was. We were going to cull that one because she wasn't treated with antibiotics. I killed one of sick ones instead (Laser) who was coughing and I am still not smarter. She laid a nice big egg today. I looked inside since I couldn't see anything outside. Except for a bad smell but not from the head end.

I am very sorry I got rid of her in the name of science discovery. I would have liked to find something obvious like frothy or yellow liquid in the lungs or spots or anything to help me diagnose better. Even her eggs were perfectly fine. We can't eat her because she was on Tetracycline. The antibiotic did nothing to get rid of the gurgling. She was coughing and periodically opened beak to breathe.
The feathers were clean, skin was not mottled or blue, feet were nice yellow and she had no mites.
The one thing I can think of now is allergy, since there is no rain, just a lot of dust, as well as the smoke from the wild fires that have been going on for months. We only have a few hours here and there of clean air. Otherwise we are just getting used to it. I don't even notice anymore that the air is not clean, except when we are coughing or feeling like we have a sore throat starting.

Here are some pictures that I took. There is nothing I can see that is abnormal. Maybe someone can spot something that I missed.
The meat is normal colour, there is no yellow or any kind of exudate around the lungs. The lungs are nice bright red, the spot where it is ripped I did that when I was trying to cut the bone open. The were both normal size, no spots or mucous.

The abdomen is clean, she looks fat, never had any problem with appetite and she was drinking and acting normally. Small egg follicles in the ovary. I don't think that's abnormal. She wasn't laying every day.

The crop is full with seeds. The esophagus does not have spots or bleeding.

The gizzard had the normal material half digested. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

This is the trachea. I don't see any hemorrhages, spots, and there was no mucous or froth, any kind of fluid in it. Not sure if the blood inside is from the way we cut. This one is a question mark. This is my first necropsy so it isn't very nice and elegant.

The esophagus looks healthy and good colour.

The liver is mushy and I ripped it when I was trying to get it out. I don't see any spots or lesions on it. I did not find the gall bladder, just a very small dark green duct. I couldn't take a picture of it. I was told the liver gets mushy because of the layer feed.

The kidney looks healthy, it was about the size of a dime.

The meat looks nice, lots of fat.

The guts are full. No lesions, necrotic spots, lots of fat in the omentum. This looks healthy to me. The smell could be from the tetracycline. She was day 3 after a 6 day tetracycline treatment. I don't think she had worms. If she did she would have been skinny. There was no air in the guts either. The poop was on the green side, kind of light but not runny, just normal size.