Five Khaki Campbells, about two and a half weeks old, in a brooder in the garage. They sneeze a lot, usually right after eating or after they have been at the water, and they shake their heads with it. All five do it.
They are eating, drinking, loud and busy, no gunk around the eyes or bills that I can see. But all five sneezing made me want to check rather than assume. Normal, or am I doing something to them?
Garage plus two and a half week old ducklings means I would put my nose at brooder level before anything else. They soak bedding astonishingly fast, wet bedding makes ammonia, and ammonia is a genuine airway irritant that reads as sneezing before it reads as anything.
Change it more often than feels reasonable, use large flake pine rather than cedar, and get air moving without putting a draught on them. If it smells sharp when you lean in, that is your answer and it is not the feed.
Also check the feed sack for damp. Mouldy feed in a garage in autumn is easier to end up with than people think.
What would move this from normal to ring somebody: discharge from the nostrils or nares crusting over, bubbly or swollen eyes, rattling or wheezing or an open bill to breathe, and any of them going quiet, fluffed and off food and water.
Several at once showing those together is the pattern to worry about, rather than several at once sneezing after dinner. If you get there, clean the brooder, check the feed for mould, improve the ventilation, separate anybody who is properly unwell, and then call.
@niacin_first · last mo. · 3 replies
Right after eating and drinking, with head shaking, in birds that are otherwise loud and busy is the normal version. Their nostrils are on top of the bill and they dunk specifically to rinse feed and dust out of them. The sneeze and the head shake are the rinse finishing.
Crumbly starter feed gets up there, so does dry bedding, so the two moments you noticed are exactly the two you would expect. Five out of five doing it is not a cluster, it is five ducklings with the same bill.
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@brooder_smells_wrong · last mo.
Their water is a shallow chick drinker. Should it be deeper if the point is rinsing their nostrils out?
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@niacin_first · last mo.
Deep enough to get the whole bill in, yes, and that is a real requirement rather than a nicety. Blocked nares cause their own problems. But not deep enough to climb into and get chilled or drown at that age, so put stones or marbles in a dish rather than giving them an open bowl.
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