View attachment 1641779
Back in November 2018, I posted in the diseases/emergency/injuries section. The title was “My gut says botulism, but could use some help“.
Thank you to everyone who shared your wisdom with me.
Also note the most important detail: I was never able to officially diagnose what she had through necropsy, because Mrs. Lee is still alive and well!!!!
View attachment 1641746
Here is a link:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/my-gut-says-botulism-but-could-use-some-help.1282403/
In that link a member asked me to write about what I did to bring my hen back to health. I will say it took a while, and I never was completely sure what she had. I went with my gut feeling.
In the very beginning, I felt like I had ADD. For the first few days I kept second guessing myself, sometimes backtracking and realizing I should have done this or that. I guess a good word would be completely flustered.
As many of you know there are so many illnesses/viruses/ etc that have similar symptoms.
Just a little history:
Mrs. Lee is a 2 year old Lavender Orpington who has been vaccinated for Mareks(hatchery ), and Fowl pox(myself). She and the rest of her flock free range daily on a 5 acre pasture with 2 mini donkeys, and a horse.
She is one of our friendliest chickens, and towards the top of the pecking order, so when I saw her lying on the floor of our coop mid day, I was heartbroken.
She was so still, laying upside down, I thought she was dead.
When I went to go pick her up, she started thrashing about.
She couldn't stand up at all. Her neck just hung down when I picked her up.
I looked her over and didn't see any obvious injuries.
I took her home with me and started researching. (My coop is about 15min from my home)
I always keep a variety of meds/vitamins handy for this exact reason.
We have had Mareks in our flock before, so I knew what to look for.
Mrs. Lee did not show the typical split leg signs I had seen in the past hens, nor any sign I had ever seen before. She showed signs of wry neck/ stargazing/botulism.
Now I will say that I realize just because she didn't show the typical marek signs doesn't mean she is free and clear. I trusted my gut feeling, and my gut told me it's not Mareks this time.
What led me to decide on botulism is the fact that there is a stream near the coop that drains into the Brazos river. We have had an extreme amount of rain, and the stream gets backed up, and floods. Well, it happened to be right around the time I found Mrs Lee unable to move that the steam had finally receded. I read that botulism can be caused by eating rotten matter. I had seen the flock over near the stream the day before.
Here is a video of her after I brought her home.
Nov 27th
Here is another video:
I initially tried feeding her through a dropper, and this proved to be a waste of time. She clearly couldn't hold her neck up to feed herself, and I would have to spend all day with a dropper to get an adequate amount of food/water in her. (I ended up with more food on me, than inside of her). I didn't want her to dehydrate and get any worse, so I tube fed her the rest of the time. (Thank you u-tube & BYC members for teaching me how, long ago)
I started out just crushing her regular food and mixing it with water, then adding liquid vitamins to it. I then realized that if I was correct, and she had a case of botulism I needed to flush her system. So I did the salt flush.
Here is how often & what I used to tube fed her:
3-4 times a day in the beginning, then as she got stronger and was able to walk I reduced it to 1-2 times daily.
I used a 60ml syringe(any feed store) attached to a catheter(any medical supply store).
Feed:
MG Layer 20% ground up
Vitamins:
Polyvisol, Nutridrench, vitamin B complex, and vitamin E
Sometimes: boiled eggs or yogurt
I decided to skip selenium. I have read it's a vitamin that can easily be overdosed. I didn't want to risk it.
After a few days I was tired of making this slurry. A few to many times it was too thick to go through the catheter, and would have little chunks that would get stuck no matter how long I kept it in the blender.
I ran to Petco, and grabbed Kaytee exact hand feeding formula.(formula for pet birds)
This made life much, much easier!! And I could add more feedings if I felt the need.
I still added all the extra vitamins, and just mixed with warm water, and sometimes yogurt. Wow, that was much easier on us both.
Over the next few days or so she started to lay/sit correctly (not falling on her back):
Here is a video:
Nov 30th
When she was able to walk again, I would let her out every morning to walk around the yard, find bugs, poop on the patio, whatever she liked. (I was just thrilled I didn't have to change her bedding, and wash her rear off anymore!)
Every night she went to her cage and I would lock her up.
Here is a video Dec 5:
She is still wobbly, but she's improving!
I ended up keeping her here at our house for over 2 weeks. We had some major rainstorms(over 10" in one day), and since the coop is in a low area, the chickens would have to step through water to freerange. So.. they were a bit on the grouchy side to say the least. I decided for Mrs. Lee’s sake to postpone her return till it dried up and everyone was not so grouchy. She also got a lot of TLC and mealworms!!
Here is a pic of the coop door the weekend that I wanted to bring her back! Yikes!!
It usually recedes quickly, but with that amount it took a bit longer.
View attachment 1641794
Her first day back went smoothly. Not sure how I lucked out on this!
I had plans to reintroduce her, however I lucked out, and I didn't have to use them. She walked out of that cage when we got to the coop and didn't need reintroduction.
Here she is the first day back (actually the first hour):
All in all I am proud of her for fighting to live!
I can't tell you what she had for sure, but I believe the supportive care she received helped tremendously toward her recovery.
She is back to normal. She doesn't have any lingering effects, or permanent damage.
Back in November 2018, I posted in the diseases/emergency/injuries section. The title was “My gut says botulism, but could use some help“.
Thank you to everyone who shared your wisdom with me.
Also note the most important detail: I was never able to officially diagnose what she had through necropsy, because Mrs. Lee is still alive and well!!!!
View attachment 1641746
Here is a link:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/my-gut-says-botulism-but-could-use-some-help.1282403/
In that link a member asked me to write about what I did to bring my hen back to health. I will say it took a while, and I never was completely sure what she had. I went with my gut feeling.
In the very beginning, I felt like I had ADD. For the first few days I kept second guessing myself, sometimes backtracking and realizing I should have done this or that. I guess a good word would be completely flustered.
As many of you know there are so many illnesses/viruses/ etc that have similar symptoms.
Just a little history:
Mrs. Lee is a 2 year old Lavender Orpington who has been vaccinated for Mareks(hatchery ), and Fowl pox(myself). She and the rest of her flock free range daily on a 5 acre pasture with 2 mini donkeys, and a horse.
She is one of our friendliest chickens, and towards the top of the pecking order, so when I saw her lying on the floor of our coop mid day, I was heartbroken.
She was so still, laying upside down, I thought she was dead.
When I went to go pick her up, she started thrashing about.
She couldn't stand up at all. Her neck just hung down when I picked her up.
I looked her over and didn't see any obvious injuries.
I took her home with me and started researching. (My coop is about 15min from my home)
I always keep a variety of meds/vitamins handy for this exact reason.
We have had Mareks in our flock before, so I knew what to look for.
Mrs. Lee did not show the typical split leg signs I had seen in the past hens, nor any sign I had ever seen before. She showed signs of wry neck/ stargazing/botulism.
Now I will say that I realize just because she didn't show the typical marek signs doesn't mean she is free and clear. I trusted my gut feeling, and my gut told me it's not Mareks this time.
What led me to decide on botulism is the fact that there is a stream near the coop that drains into the Brazos river. We have had an extreme amount of rain, and the stream gets backed up, and floods. Well, it happened to be right around the time I found Mrs Lee unable to move that the steam had finally receded. I read that botulism can be caused by eating rotten matter. I had seen the flock over near the stream the day before.
Here is a video of her after I brought her home.
Here is another video:
I initially tried feeding her through a dropper, and this proved to be a waste of time. She clearly couldn't hold her neck up to feed herself, and I would have to spend all day with a dropper to get an adequate amount of food/water in her. (I ended up with more food on me, than inside of her). I didn't want her to dehydrate and get any worse, so I tube fed her the rest of the time. (Thank you u-tube & BYC members for teaching me how, long ago)
I started out just crushing her regular food and mixing it with water, then adding liquid vitamins to it. I then realized that if I was correct, and she had a case of botulism I needed to flush her system. So I did the salt flush.
Here is how often & what I used to tube fed her:
3-4 times a day in the beginning, then as she got stronger and was able to walk I reduced it to 1-2 times daily.
I used a 60ml syringe(any feed store) attached to a catheter(any medical supply store).
Feed:
MG Layer 20% ground up
Vitamins:
Polyvisol, Nutridrench, vitamin B complex, and vitamin E
Sometimes: boiled eggs or yogurt
I decided to skip selenium. I have read it's a vitamin that can easily be overdosed. I didn't want to risk it.
After a few days I was tired of making this slurry. A few to many times it was too thick to go through the catheter, and would have little chunks that would get stuck no matter how long I kept it in the blender.
I ran to Petco, and grabbed Kaytee exact hand feeding formula.(formula for pet birds)
This made life much, much easier!! And I could add more feedings if I felt the need.
I still added all the extra vitamins, and just mixed with warm water, and sometimes yogurt. Wow, that was much easier on us both.
Over the next few days or so she started to lay/sit correctly (not falling on her back):
Here is a video:
Nov 30th
When she was able to walk again, I would let her out every morning to walk around the yard, find bugs, poop on the patio, whatever she liked. (I was just thrilled I didn't have to change her bedding, and wash her rear off anymore!)
Every night she went to her cage and I would lock her up.
Here is a video Dec 5:
She is still wobbly, but she's improving!
I ended up keeping her here at our house for over 2 weeks. We had some major rainstorms(over 10" in one day), and since the coop is in a low area, the chickens would have to step through water to freerange. So.. they were a bit on the grouchy side to say the least. I decided for Mrs. Lee’s sake to postpone her return till it dried up and everyone was not so grouchy. She also got a lot of TLC and mealworms!!
Here is a pic of the coop door the weekend that I wanted to bring her back! Yikes!!
It usually recedes quickly, but with that amount it took a bit longer.
View attachment 1641794
Her first day back went smoothly. Not sure how I lucked out on this!
I had plans to reintroduce her, however I lucked out, and I didn't have to use them. She walked out of that cage when we got to the coop and didn't need reintroduction.
Here she is the first day back (actually the first hour):
All in all I am proud of her for fighting to live!
I can't tell you what she had for sure, but I believe the supportive care she received helped tremendously toward her recovery.
She is back to normal. She doesn't have any lingering effects, or permanent damage.
