Sudden death in Wyandotte

[ForklandBYC]

Hello! Husband and wife new to backyard chickens. We have 15 total chickens. Variety of
Araucana/Ameraucana crosses,
Araucana/Hamburg crosses, buff Orpingtons, buff Brahma and two Wyandottes. We have one buff Orpington that shows signs of respitory illness which we separated from flock. Treated with ivermectin. Runny nose and a bit lethargic. But otherwise eats, drinks and does everything normally. Tonight we had a Wyandotte suddleny die without any signs of distress. I examined her well after she passed and no signs of infestations , runny nose etc. should we be concerned for our flock? Thank you

 

[DobieLover]

Welcome to BYC.

respitory illness

Treated with ivermectin

This does not treat respiratory infections.
If you think they have a respiratory infection, you can treat it with tylosin which is the active ingredient in Tylan50, a common drug you can purchase at your local feed store. You need to purchase a syringe with needle to draw it out of the bottle.
Then remove the needle and orally dose 0.1ml/pound, twice daily for 5 days.
If your birds have been acclimated to eating small pieces of bread, you can squirt the dose into a piece of bread and feed the bread to the bird. Treat each bird in a separate area from the others so dosed bread cannot be stolen by another bird.

we had a Wyandotte suddleny die without any signs of distress

I'm sorry for your loss.
How long have you kept chickens? Are you familiar with all the signs of a chicken that is feeling well? They can be subtle if you don't know what to look for.
Was her body weight correct for her age?
What did her poops look like?
Was she laying?
What are you feeding the flock?

 

[orelsi]

Yeah Ivermectin is for parasites not respiratory stuff. If you can't find what Dobie recommended, you can also use Oxytetracycline based antibiotics. Chickens tolerate them very wel. Mind you they work only on bacterial infections and won't do anything about viruses, like all antibiotics. If it's viral the hen will have to fight it herself, but the antibiotics can prevent complications, so you won't make a mistake either way.

I encourage you to give her poultry vitamins as well, to boost the immune system.

As for the one that died - if there are no visible symptoms it can be a heart attack, especially if it's an older bird. It's not necessarily an illness.

Keep monitoring the rest of the flock for any smyptoms (odd behavior, listlessness, runny nose, etc.) and separate the sick one, if you can.

 

[ForklandBYC]

Welcome to BYC.



This does not treat respiratory infections.
If you think they have a respiratory infection, you can treat it with tylosin which is the active ingredient in Tylan50, a common drug you can purchase at your local feed store. You need to purchase a syringe with needle to draw it out of the bottle.
Then remove the needle and orally dose 0.1ml/pound, twice daily for 5 days.
If your birds have been acclimated to eating small pieces of bread, you can squirt the dose into a piece of bread and feed the bread to the bird. Treat each bird in a separate area from the others so dosed bread cannot be stolen by another bird.

I'm sorry for your loss.
How long have you kept chickens? Are you familiar with all the signs of a chicken that is feeling well? They can be subtle if you don't know what to look for.
Was her body weight correct for her age?
What did her poops look like?
Was she laying?
What are you feeding the flock?

Thank you for the info. As of now no feed stores carry anthing to treat resp illness. I have called tractor supply etc. vets don’t seem to intrested in the chicken world. Will update if we can find anything to treat with. We are located in KY

 

[TillyPeeps]

Thank you for the info. As of now no feed stores carry anthing to treat resp illness. I have called tractor supply etc. vets don’t seem to intrested in the chicken world. Will update if we can find anything to treat with. We are located in KY

Tylan are not sold for treating chickens. TSC used to carry it, but I didn't check recently. If you cannot find it locally, you can always order it online.

 

[ForklandBYC]

Update. Even tho we separated the sick Orpington with the respitory issues the flock was already exposed. We had one
Araucana wheezing,runny nose and coughing. One bantam Brahma gaping with light cough. We invested into vetrx and treated the whole flock along with some probiotics and electrolytes. Today makes day two and the aracuana shows no signs of resp distress, bantam Brahma shows no gaping.. still has cough here and there. Orpington we separated has light cough, but no longer has any drainage from nostrils. Very pleased with this vetrx. Maybe it will keep us from antibiotics etc.