ARE YOUR BIRDS HAVING WATERY EYES WITH SLIGHT CATARRH? (infectious Coryza)
ARE YOUR BIRDS HAVING WATERY EYES WITH SLIGHT CATARRH?
What is affecting them is most likely infectious Coryza.
This is the season and most people are experiencing it.
Let’s look at the disease, why it occurs and how you can treat it.
Infectious coryza is a bacterial disease of chickens.
Chickens contact this disease when they come in direct contact with the discharge from the nose of other infected birds. Airborne droplets can also spread the infection.
Once the disease is introduced into a farm, more and more birds get infected as the affected birds contaminate the drinking water with the discharge from their nostrils.
When a chicken picks up the disease, it will begin to manifest the signs anywhere between 1 to 3 days.
At first you will notice they are dull, their activity decreases and feed consumption reduces very slightly.
As the disease progresses, you will observe that they begin to sneeze especially in the cool period of the day. This will be followed by very obvious discharge from their nostrils and finally the face and head begins to swell.
As the swelling increases, it may prevent the eyes from fully opening. This will affect the chicken’s ability to eat and drink. At this stage, you will have to help them locate food and water if you want them to eat and survive.
Affected birds will usually have a mild form of diarrhea. They will lose weight greatly too. Young pullets will have a delay in start of egg production while already laying hens will have a serious drop in egg production.
For the head swelling, it usually clears off in 10–14 days; however, if secondary infection occurs it can persist for months.
The disease can affect birds of any age but it is usually observed in birds that are above 3 weeks of age. This means you have to be on the watch out as your birds clock 3 weeks.
For infected birds, early antibiotic treatment may help them recover. I should emphasize that early treatment is important.
As soon as you seen the first signs, go ahead and administer medication via drinking water.
Drugs containing Colistin and Erythromycin such Colimycine are usually effective.
Oxytetracycline works too.
Various sulfonamide mixtures including EST Mix works well.
In very severe outbreaks however, although treatment may result in improvement, the disease may recur when medication is discontinued.
Prevention is therefore still the best option.
Once you sell out a batch that was infected, ensure to disinfect all facilities and materials used by the infected batch before bringing in a new batch.