Respiratory Illness

For the past week, we've been dealing with respiratory illness in our laying flock. We have them on stress aid and antibiotics and they seem to be starting to recover but despite my best efforts it now has spread into our chicken pen. I saw some depressed chicks yesterday and today am hearing the respiratory symptoms. I have all my pens on stress aid now and have antibiotics in any pens in which I see/hear symptoms. Mostly, I'm afraid for the youngest chicks as they always seem to be hit the hardest.

We had a very similiar disease three summers ago - same symptoms. All the research I've done seems to me to point to infectious bronchitis. I've talked to a vet (hard job) and if I lose a bird, I will be sending it for a necropsy. Anyway, my greatest fear, as I said is my youngest chicks. Just got chicks from Performance Poultry which are now just two weeks old. These are still in the house and I haven't been tending them ( my sister is). I don't want to get to near them for fear of them getting sick as they are still healthy. We decided last night to move them into a back room and keep both doors shut. I will stay out of the room and everyone else will stay away from my outside coops. Hoping to at least delay infection of this group until they are older.

All I've read about IB is that in chicks under 5 wks old, you can expect to lose 30-50%. So please wish us luck with these chickies and any further advise would be appreciated.

PS have no idea where we've picked this up from. We haven't brought any live birds onto our property this year - having had bad experiences doing so in the past. Someone must have carried it here on their clothing. Does anyone know if recovered birds can be carriers and break down and pass it on. The first bird to get sick was a three yr old which we had the summer we had the outbreak before.

- Many different strains (serotypes); immunity to one does not confer immunity to others.
- Highly contagious; transmitted in air droplets, and by people and equipment.
- Only affects chickens (so wild birds are not vectors)
- Many birds recover completely; virus persists in the bird for weeks to months (but apparently not forever).
- Can't be positively identified by symptoms alone.
- Not sure if it can be transmitted through eggs - most scientists seem to think not, but it can certainly be transmitted on the outside of the egg shell if it is not sterilised).

Have you ruled out mycoplasma (chronic respiratory disease) as the causal agent? It is very commonmin backyard floscks and once a bird has been infected with CRD is is a carrier forever so the disease can flair up at any time. It can also be transmitted through hatching eggs. One symptom I find is unique to CRD is the presence of tiny bubbles on the fluid of eye in some (although not all) infected birds.

This table comparing symptoms I find useful: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044#TABLE_1

I hope your chicks remain healthy and your losses are minimal.

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Appreciate the comments and advise. The laying hens seem much better today and actually the laying has even picked up today. I'm hoping this is a mild strain of whatever it is but it's yet to be seen how it will run its course with the young ones. Speaking of which, it has now spread in our other pens so our younger birds are just starting to come down with it now. It does spread very fast once it hits a pen, which is one of the reasons I tend to think it may be IB. Once it hits a pen it seems to go through the whole flock within a day or two. Also, other symptoms we have that are typical of IB is 1) that the breathing problems are worse at night when the birds go to rest 2) it seems to hit roosters harder than hens and takes them longer to get over the symptoms. I haven't seen the bubbles in the eyes that are typical of mycoplasma. I haven't had any testing done yet so can't say for sure so I'm just going by comparing symptoms to what I'm reading about each respiratory disease.

We haven't seen any sickness in the Performance Poultry chicks that are in the house, yet. Our Performance chickens have been moved into a back room in the house where they will be tended by my sister and I will STAY out of that room completely. Doors shut!!

I've started adding acetycylic acid (aspirin) in the drinking water as I read somewhere that it was recommended to help control inflamation during the acute staage of IB as inflamation in the kidneys can lead to death in the young chicks. Has anyone else heard of using acetycylic acid as an anti inflamatory in birds. Our country store carries the tablets for larger animals but recommended I just buy regular aspirin for the chickens. Maybe I'm way off on this, but it doesn't seem to be hurting them and my layers seem to be doing better, so I'm giving it a try.

I am beginning to wonder if one of my older birds may have been a carrier and shed the virus. My 3 yr old turken was the first to break down and she was on our property when we had a similiar outbreak three yrs ago.