hen seems to struggle for breath and has mucus around beak
Hello, I'm Dr. Bob.I'm sorry for the delay in this response, the time zone differences make it a bit difficult to reply more promptly.Has Dolly been exposed to any new or strange birds in the past few weeks?
yes , four new chicks introduced about 3 weeks ago.they all apear to be healthy
Okay, thank you.Judging from your description Dolly is suffering from a respiratory infection. There are quite a large number of different conditions that all show the symptoms you've described. Have you noticed any other symptoms, loose droppings, a color change in her droppings, coughing, rattling when breathing, change in the color of her comb, discharge from the eyes or nose, reduced appetite, problems moving about, etc. We'll need more symptoms to try to reduce the list of possibilities and come up with a specific treatment plan, otherwise, the treatment will have to be very general, based on nursing care and possibly broad-spectrum antibiotics.
discharge from nose(mucus?)cough and noise when breathing appetite seems ok moving okdropings could be loose and a khaki brown colour
Hello again, sorry for the delay, but I'm getting ready to go to my clinic for work this morning.I'll be back online in one hour.Dr. Bob
I'm back online.The symptoms she's showing are most definitely those of a respiratory infection. New birds can introduce diseases to your flock without showing signs themselves, so a 6 week quarantine period is recommended for new additions before adding them to the established population.The symptoms you've described are shared by the following diseases:Infectious laryngotracheitisInfectious bronchitis (the most contagious poultry disease, can travel more than 1000 yards through the air)Newcastle Infectious coryza (a putrid odor is associated with the discharged material)The best approach this early in the course of this disease is to isolate her and the new chicks (not together), and watch for symptoms in other chickens you may have.Google each of the diseases by name, adding "in chickens" a good site to start with would be found here: http://www.amerpoultryassn.com/respiratory_disease.htmThe more symptoms you can identify, the better the likelihood of identifying the actual disease. In the meantime, keep her warm, feed a good high protein diet (5 or 6 pieces of dry cat food will be very helpful in raising the quality and quantity of protein in her diet), and cover her with an antibiotic. You can buy poultry antibiotics from feed and farm stores, from a veterinarian, or online. I would recommend erythromycin (Gallimycin), or tylocin (Tylan) as logical choices. Although most respiratory infections in chickens are caused by viruses, which are not affected by antibiotics, secondary bacterial invaders are usually responsible for the severity of the disease as well as complications that develop.Hopefully, she will be the only one affected and you can nurse her through this illness. If you should have further questions, please let me know.Best regards,Dr. Bob
Hi Richard,I'm just following up on our conversation about Dolly. How is everything going?Dr. Bob
am treating with CTC-ECO oral powdershe seems a little improvedhopefully will see more improvementthanks for your helpregards richard
Thank you, Richard, for letting me know how she's doing. Longstanding infections may take quite some time to clear, or a different antibiotic may be needed to take care of resistant bacteria. If she's not 100% after seven days, try changing medications to something like Tylocin.Best regards,Dr. Bob