There are many types of guides detailing how to cure sipon and halak, or treat chicken colds and other respiratory tract infections but most of these guides use antibiotics and seldom suggest the use of natural and organic home remedies.
In this article, we are going to explain how to treat your chicken that is suffering from cold or “sipon at halak” using only herbs available around your house. Some big free-range chicken farms already apply this method on a larger scale but they have different mixtures and compositions. In this process, we are going to use our own tested and proven recipe.
How to Cure Sipon and Halak: Prevention is better than cure
Before we dig deep into treatment, it is essential that we should always keep our flock free of any diseases. We can only achieve this by:
- Always keep the chicken coop (kulungan ng manok) clean by putting rice hull or coco lumber sawdust on top of the ground if your chicken house or coop has a concrete floor or no flooring at all. Coco lumber sawdust is the best to absorb chicken manure and can always keep your flooring dry. Keeping your flooring dry is essential to drive flies (langaw) away.
- As much as possible, don’t allow your chickens to get wet under the rain. This is the main cause of colds, especially during the rainy season.
- During the rainy season, the following formula must be served as drinking water daily for one week if you feel your chickens would likely to get colds. You can tell if they are getting weak or always feels cold.
- Boil a gallon of water with 100 grams oregano leaves, 1 clove of crushed garlic, 50 grams of crushed ginger, 50 grams of crushed lemongrass (tanglad), and 10 pieces calamansi (juiced).
- Serve the boiled mixture when cold as drinking water for one week.
Sipon and Halak Treatment
What if you missed applying prevention and you are late to notice that your birds are already suffering from halak with others struggling to breathe?
Declogging
- Clean the chicken’s mouth and nose including its eyes using a lukewarm mixture of boiled oregano (see above). Press its nose to release some of the phlegm (plema)
- Get 50 grams of fresh oregano leaves and press to make juice
- Pour a little amount of pure oregano juice into the chicken’s nostrils and make sure the juice penetrated inside its nose.
- Get cotton balls, dip them into oregano juice and start cleaning the chicken’s esophagus using a surgical plier or a small long nose plier (any available) while pressing the phlegm outside of its nostrils. Repeat the process until no more phlegm is left.
- Separate the chicken and serve a mixture of boiled oregano (see above) as drinking water.
- Repeat the declogging process for 3 days until the phlegm is totally gone.
- Keep serving the mixed boiled drinking water until the cold disappears.
Treating chicken colds is not really hard but it needs proper care and attention. If the chicken is too weak to eat, make sure to administer food orally (subuan ng pagkain).
See Also:
- How Long Do Hens Lay Eggs
- Chicken Vaccination and Preventive Medication Guide and Schedule
- Free Range vs Caged Chicken vs Organic Chicken
- Broody Hen: Everything You Need to Know
- 10 Best Egg Laying Chicken Breeds