Update On Our Sick Cochin

Our Cochin hen is doing fine. Still confined to the 'sick ward', but hopefully in the direction to a quick mend. I'm just thankful to finally wake up to a hen that is better off than she was the day before (for Fanny, it was the other way around). We armed ourselves yesterday with a little bit of knowledge and a remedy recommended from Guy the chicken guy we met at tractor supply a few weeks ago. We were told that he is one of the top chicken judges around the area and is ridiculously knowledgeable in poultry. I think I need to get to know this guy better. He diagnosed our bird with Coryza, a common infectious poultry bacterium (Avibacterium paragallinarum - sorry, I'm a microbiologist, so I have to throw that in!) that is, for the bird, the equivalent to the human cold. Apparently once the birds have it, they become carriers. You're options? Cull the whole flock and start over, inoculate the new comers, or treat them as they get sick. Since we have a small flock of chickens with which we are 'attached' to, culling is out. I'm sure that this will travel through all of the recent additions until everyone has had it, so we will treat as necessary. Perhaps in the future, I will research and try inoculating any other new additions. Fortunately those who have already had this should not have a reoccurrence, and the potential for death is low.

Treatment? Guy recommended penicillin in a pill form. We couldn't locate any penicillin safe for them yesterday, so we are using Colloidal Silver. There's not a lot of information out there about using silver in poults but it's what we found worked best in during the last outbreak. We use it for ourselves and it works wonders. If anyone has information otherwise, as always, please pass it along. The bacteria is apparently showing resistance to Terramycin and Erythromycin (this would explain why the Terramycin didn't do a lick of good the last time). He also recommended VetRx (the orange/yellow box above), which is like Vicks for chickens. It looks to be all natural with the main active ingredient being Camphor (like in Vicks). And while we were picking it up at Agway yesterday, I found The Chicken Health Handbook by Gail Damerow, which I've been looking for; I picked that up too.

So that's that! Blue Cochin is on the mend, and hopefully we can treat any other infections that pop up quickly. I'll keep you posted...