Ruffly hen

Garden Peas said:

Any way to get enough metronidazole into the water to treat everybody?

Or maybe I will put it onto bread, I think it is a powder in these packets....

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Probably no way to get enough in the water, plus it tastes nasty, so it's quite likely they won't drink it. Any chance you could take a fresh sample like that and have a fecal done?

-Kathy

casportpony said:

Probably no way to get enough in the water, plus it tastes nasty, so it's quite likely they won't drink it. Any chance you could take a fresh sample like that and have a fecal done?

-Kathy

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On the fecal, I would say... maybe. I wish I could catch whoever's doing it, and I would wrestle it to the ground and stuff metronidazole into it.

I may have to just treat them all if I can't figure it out. I need 20 mg per kg, right? Now gotta guess some weights. Daggone it. Two pretty big males, one medium-sized (maybe smallish, he's almost 3) male, a pretty good sized hen (she's also almost 3, but well-filled out) and the two wea-peas who were born in June/early July time frame, and are pretty good sized girls.

Amount of metronidazole varies according to what you want to treat for... For blackhead, it's no less than 30mg/kg once a day for five days, but for other infections, it can be as much as 50mg/kg twice a day for weeks. For blackhead I do 50mg/kg twice a day for five days.

-Kathy

casportpony said:

Amount of metronidazole varies according to what you want to treat for... For blackhead, it's no less than 30mg/kg once a day for five days, but for other infections, it can be as much as 50mg/kg twice a day for weeks. For blackhead I do 50mg/kg twice a day for five days.

-Kathy

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Any guesses on a range of weights for these guys? I've been making progress with them, but not sure I can get an accurate weight on anybody, even if I catch them.

Will explain some other time why I chose to not hand tame them when tiny birds. I started to, and then stopped. Reversing course after 4 years not happening totally quick

casportpony said:

Probably no way to get enough in the water, plus it tastes nasty, so it's quite likely they won't drink it. Any chance you could take a fresh sample like that and have a fecal done?

-Kathy

Click to expand...

I had no problem crushing the pills and putting it in their mash, they ate it like it wasn't in there. My vet was concerned it might not work because of the taste but I think the addition of cat food, mackerel, bananas, and over ripe pears made it palatable.

The wee peas still won't touch mash, but they have become crazy for bread. I have the fish powder that @casportpony mentioned, API General Cure, which has the added benefit of having some praziquantel with it. Each powder packet has 250 mg of metronidazole and 75 mg of praziquantel.

Since I expanded the pen for the wee peas, I can still segregate birds... I think I can herd one bird at a time in there and get the required amount of meds into it, if I lace the bread with it. Worked really well with the safeguard, only I did them in a group and counted who had what. For this, I will take the time to separate them.

If I absolutely have to, I will catch birds... they just aren't accustomed to being handled, and I am afraid in their panic that they will get hurt.

I know two of the males were pooping normally this morning, because I watched them. I kinda think maybe only one bird is doing this, since I didn't see any more bad poo than the one. But I am trying to decide whether to treat the whole flock with the metronidazole, or just the sick bird (if I can identify it), or the four birds I didn't see poop, if I can't identify which one. Kathy, what would you recommend?

If I had even a little more idea which bird it was, I think I'd try to stuff it into a crate until it pooped for a day or two.

I thought about trying to pluck them off of the roost at night, but when I go out egg patrolling, they've all been waking up and demanding to know why the heck I'm in the birdhouse so late at night. So not thinking these guys are gonna go pea-cefully, even after dark

KsKingBee said:

I had no problem crushing the pills and putting it in their mash, they ate it like it wasn't in there. My vet was concerned it might not work because of the taste but I think the addition of cat food, mackerel, bananas, and over ripe pears made it palatable.

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Mackerel... OMG, you could put roofing tar in with mackerel and not notice it was in there. And cat food... you are a genius.

And if I can scrape up a decent sample tomorrow (if I find another poop like that), I will try to get it looked at by a vet....