In keeping with the trend of disaster with the new chicks I picked up from the hobby farm, my chicks in the brooder have begun to gasp for air, sneeze, have watery eyes, elongated area around the eye, nasal discharge, generally looking untidy and ruffled, and possibly stunted growth. They just look a little small. One, the surviving marans, is showing the most signs. All of the others except the two Sicilian buttercup x barred rock crosses are showing varying levels of infection some simply have watery eyes, to mild sneezing, but the marans is exhibiting all of the symptoms. If you are keeping up that is one chick lost to coccidiosis and one unknown death within the first week of picking them up, and now dealing with a respiratory disease of some sort. I suspect either infectious bronchitis or mycoplasma. I'm really hoping for brooder Pneumonia. I will have had them three weeks on Tuesday.
The brooder was cleaned and sanitized again, added vitamins to the water. Chicks are no worse and no better today. We will see how it goes from here.
We have the three healthy Easter Eggers outside who haven't had contact with the chicks and aren't exhibiting symptoms. We want to protect them as best we can and are trying to determine an appropriate course of action. The husband and I are now discussing what to do with the in the brooder. We can cull and eventually get more (I think after all these issues I'm done adding new chicks this year), but fear that our older birds have likely been exposed via myself and my clothing as I fed and watered both sets of birds in the same clothing/shoes. We would have to cull them as well to be completely safe. Godfrey is 100% a pet, and we don't wish to do this for her at least. Or we can maintain them through this illness and keep a closed flock until these birds pass on. I'm looking at sending off for testing on Monday which should at least give me a clearer idea of what we are dealing with. Hopefully we can come up with an appropriate plan.
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have been in it for a couple weeks now and are enjoying it. We will need to add room in the coop itself. I’d like to paint it and add a covering to the expanded run.
