when is Chicken with Coryza not safe to return to flock?

[Jdlt91]

Hello, does anyone know when I can return a chicken who has been infected with coryza back to its flock? I quarantined her and shes behaving all better and seems ready to go back out but her eye still has a small ball under it that has been slowly decreasing each day. When will I know that shes not contagious anymore?

 

[Pyxis]

You can't, ever, if your goal is to not infect the rest of your flock. This is a disease that they are never rid of. Even if you treat the symptoms, she is now a carrier for life, and will spread the disease to all other chickens she lives with.

So, she's always contagious now, for the rest of her life. Sorry Was this a new bird you just purchased to add to your flock?

 

[Eggcessive]

Welcome to BYC. What symptoms did you see? Are you sure it was coryza? There are a handful of respiratory diseases and most are contagious and make them carriers for life. But your chickens may already have exposure to it, and might all test positive for it. How long have you had the sick bird, and have you added birds recently? They usually get it from a carrier, a new flock member. Once you have coryza or MG, the other disease that is similar, you will always have it in the flock until the last birds dies and is gone for several days.

Clues to having coryza are a really bad odor, thick pus from eyes and thick nasal drainage, coughing, etc. MG usually causes bubbles in a eye or eye drainage, sneeze, nasal drainage, but symptoms can be milder. Testing or a necropsy by the state vet is the best way to ID a disease.

 

[dawg53]

Foul odor around the head area is a dead giveaway for Coryza.

 

[Jdlt91]

You can't, ever, if your goal is to not infect the rest of your flock. This is a disease that they are never rid of. Even if you treat the symptoms, she is now a carrier for life, and will spread the disease to all other chickens she lives with.

So, she's always contagious now, for the rest of her life. Sorry Was this a new bird you just purchased to add to your flock?

Oh no. I bought new chickens from a private seller and his chickens had a a small cough which made two of my chickens to get sick. One died already and the other one is recovering. She definitely smelled bad her eye were swollen shut and pus was oozing out. That chickens eyes are almost back to normal and she is acting all better but still separated. Does this mean all my chickens are probably exposed to this disease.

 

[Jdlt91]

You can't, ever, if your goal is to not infect the rest of your flock. This is a disease that they are never rid of. Even if you treat the symptoms, she is now a carrier for life, and will spread the disease to all other chickens she lives with.

So, she's always contagious now, for the rest of her life. Sorry Was this a new bird you just purchased to add to your flock?

Does this mean I need to put them all down?

 

[Pyxis]

Oh no. I bought new chickens from a private seller and his chickens had a a small cough which made two of my chickens to get sick. One died already and the other one is recovering. She definitely smelled bad her eye were swollen shut and pus was oozing out. That chickens eyes are almost back to normal and she is acting all better but still separated. Does this mean all my chickens are probably exposed to this disease.

If the birds from the seller were in your flock then yes, they have all been exposed and it should be assumed they are all carriers.

Does this mean I need to put them all down?

That depends on your goals for your flock. If these are just pets or egg layers, and you're fine with not ever selling or giving away birds, and are okay with not adding new birds (which would just become infected), and don't mind that you'll have to give your flock antibiotics to treat the symptoms when they have a flare up, then you can just close your flock and keep them all until they naturally die.

If, however, you wanted to be able to sell birds or give birds away or add new birds, then yes, the only way to get rid of the disease would be to cull the whole flock Very sorry.

 

[dawg53]

Here's a link regarding Coryza for you to read:
https://www.shagbarkbantams.com/infectious-coryza/If you decide to maintain a closed flock, it would be best to treat birds showing symptoms with a sulfa product such as sulfadimethoxine and baytril combination. You can also use SMZ/TMP which is a combo of sulfa and antibiotic.
Your other option is to cull, disinfect everything with activated oxine and repopulate in 30 days.
Personally I would cull my flock since birds are carriers for life, disinfect everything including inside coops, feeders, waterers, nest boxes etc and repopulate at a later time.

 

[Eggcessive]

Did you put the new chickens right in the coop with the rest of the flock, or did you quarantine them at first? If they have been a part of the flock, then, yes the others could be exposed. You may have to wait and see, but I would at least cull the sick birds and send them off to the state vet for a necropsy. Then you would get a diagnosis of exactly what disease(s) is present. Sorry that you are dealing with this, and this the reason I do not buy chickens from others, only chicks from a hatchery.

 

[Jdlt91]

I definitely made a huge mistake in buying more Hens. They were together for about 2 weeks before my hen and rooster showed signs and they became severely sick. We wanted to breed and sell chicks I'm wondering maybe we can collect eggs and in incubate them in garage far away from chickens. Is this too risky or a bad idea I read the chicks wont be born with corzya somewhere unless they come in contact. But I would like to hear if this is out of question?