Blackhead advice

You should be feeding them a gamebird feed.It contains small amounts of meds that control blackhead.Furazollidone or dimetridazole are the best alternative meds.
In N.H.,Tony.

Hi Tony,

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately this is not the case in France. The blackhead medication has been banned in all feed as it must not enter the food chain. Nor do I have access to the other medications you mention. That's the desperation of my post - I need help working with what I've got and what I can get! That's basically ronidazole and any natural medication.

Thanks,

Amy

Blackhead is carried by the caecal worm.You can give them pumpkins to kill off the worms,but that doesn't do nothing for blackhead.The drug emtryl was being used in their feed but has been banned for years because of the food chain,so I'm guessing you had the same drug and it was banned there also.It is available in Canada and Mexico if you can get some.I just don't know where exactly to get it.
In N.H.,Tony.

I just read that Metronidazole(which is the same as Flagyl) is the same thing as dimetrizole.Is that available near you?
In N.H.,Tony.

Tony K T said:

I just read that Metronidazole(which is the same as Flagyl) is the same thing as dimetrizole.Is that available near you?
In N.H.,Tony.

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Nope - vet doesn't have it. But she does say that ronidazole is more effective for the same disease.

MontserratChick said:

Hi all,

I'm asking advice from you Turkey folks because I think you collectively have a lot of experience of Blackhead so I'm maximising my expertise pool! What I actually have is a sick peacock. I live in France, so a lot of advice on medications etc aren't available, which is why I'm asking for any alternative advice. I've gone through and through past posts and am doing what I can but would value any more recent experiences too.

We took the peacock to the vet on Tuesday after he had symptoms for around 1 week (we are inexperienced due to inheriting peafowl from previous house-owners and didn't realise what the droopiness meant until we saw his droppings and looked them up online).

We brought him indoors to keep him warm and the vet gave us ronidazole and a dog antibiotic containing trimethoprime and sulfamethoxypyridazine (french names for both) because she didn't have anything for birds (nothing in the enrofloxacin family. We are also tubing him to give him lots of fluids each day and have included some probiotic and cattle rehydration formula.

I have also been trying to get some cayenne pepper into his food and liquids.

You will see that we have quite a hotchpotch of treatments here, but none of the most commonly recommended drugs on this site. This is because they are either proscribed in France or our vet doesn't have them in stock (she's a very small country vet).

My questions are:

Can anybody give me a good dosage for the ronidazole because I'm not sure he's getting enough? The details on the packet say 10mg per kg of body weight, and this makes about 50mg for him a day, which we're taking to be around 1 fifth of an eight of a teaspoon, which is a really tiny amount and hard to measure - I actually fear I've been giving him too much. The vet said 1 tsp per 2l of water, but there's no way he's drinking right now so I need to know how much to tube him with. Am finding it very hard so if anybody has any experience then that would be very welcome.

I've also read a lot of examples of alternative treatments. Please can anybody tell me something else I might try right now that has been successful in the late stages of the disease?

What do you feed them (it has to be force-feedable because he's not eating) that helps to give them some energy?

Yesterday he really started to pant a lot, but that seems to have subsided a little today. He had one or two solid droppings in the past two days but the rest are still liquid green/yellow. He looks very, very sad and droopy and thin.

Thank you for your help

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PM @casportpony for advice on this matter. She is very knowledgeable about blackhead in turkeys and pea fowl.

There was a recent claim that using habanero peppers to treat blackhead in a turkey was effective.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1106962/65-day-old-br-sex/20#post_17250788

R2elk said:

PM @casportpony for advice on this matter. She is very knowledgeable about blackhead in turkeys and pea fowl.

There was a recent claim that using habanero peppers to treat blackhead in a turkey was effective.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1106962/65-day-old-br-sex/20#post_17250788

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@casportpony has been holding my hand all the way through it - she's amazing. She has taught me to tube feed him and made me bring him indoors, which I believe have helped him so much. But we don't have all of the meds she recommends so I was just putting it out there in case there are some more 'natural' remedies I might be able to find. Thanks so much for pointing me towards the habanero post - I've been trying cayenne but I may try soaking some peppers in boiling water to more directly administer them this time.

Very sorry to hear, hope it's improving. I'd keep up the cayenne and or habanero or any other pepper you can find. I'd also use garlic and oregano and thyme in the feed and/or water and apple cider vinegar in the water. Oregano oil if you can find it too.

I've heard that Acidified Copper Sulfate is a good treatment for blackhead, as it kills the responsible protozoa. Do you have access to that?