Broken? Wing

[CrazyBeets]

It looks like it is a no-go on the Tylan; the cost seems to be outrageous, in fact it is more than I paid for all of my chickens combined. The first antibiotic I used was the terra-vet 10; do you think this would work if I tried another round? I'm not sure she got the antibiotic the whole first round, in fact I don't think she drank anything for a few days at that time.

 

[justplainbatty]

Yes, she's still around. Two days ago after she got some water and food into her and I dusted her, she perked up again. Yesterday she ate quite a bit (for her), about 2 oz. Her new favorite thing is to knock her water up all over herself, so I rigged a new holder for it. She's eating and drinking a lot and for the most part she is putting weight on her left leg. She keeps chewing on her chest feathers and the sling, like she is trying to itch something. I checked her out but cannot find anything so I am wondering if it is the new feathers that are bothering her. Today she has been shaking her head and kicking her left foot like she is trying to scratch her face. I looked in her ear again and didn't see anything.

I got the dewormer, safeguard for goats. It seems like it is a liquid, so I am unsure how to dispense it to her? We weighed her yesterday, she's a grand total of 1.5 pounds. I was not able to find the Tylan locally, so I am going to order it from Amazon today.

I've been giving her some time out of the sling. She still doesn't seem to have much control over her body, but I have noticed that she puts pressure on her legs when I sit her up (so she ends up sitting with her butt in the air). It seems like she is trying to get up, which is good, but there still isn't much to her. She's got some color back into her face and comb, so she doesn't look as pale as before.

How awesome! She may still be a little itchy from the bug bites, dry skin, new feathers or the dust. (you could try scratching her ears and face for her lol!) Now that she's got food in her crop, it may feel a little weird to her, she may try adjusting it which is not that unusual. Also, if new feathers are growing there, she has to unsheathe them so they fluff out. Poor girl, she is so underweight! With your care and good food, she should recover. I think the leg trouble really is from deficiencies and should improve with the proper food/vitamin support. It's good that she can shift forward into a different position, giving organs of the other position a break. I don't think she is a mareks bird only bc in the condition she was in, it would have killed her.
The dewormer is in a tube labeled paste? It may be a little runny but that's ok. Type "@casportpony " into the search bar for this site and look in her signature. The dosing for it is there. I believe it is 0.23ml per # for 5 days, syringe orally. Double check though, we don't want to O.D. the poor girl again! ( If you are really worried, just give for 1# or use bantam dosage).
You're really doing great with her btw! Update again when you can?

 

[justplainbatty]

It looks like it is a no-go on the Tylan; the cost seems to be outrageous, in fact it is more than I paid for all of my chickens combined. The first antibiotic I used was the terra-vet 10; do you think this would work if I tried another round? I'm not sure she got the antibiotic the whole first round, in fact I don't think she drank anything for a few days at that time.

Well, it's tetracycline, it's ok. I'm not sure at this point that she even needs more antibiotics. If the color is returning to her face and she is indeed eating and drinking, she should poop more often. the poop you described before seems to be of normal color and consistency. The labored breathing could have been from the pressure of organs she was continually resting on. If she is no longer showing any respiratory distress, nasal discharge or eye crusting, I would think she is ok for now. If she has a respiratory issue, it may not show again until a stress period, like re introduction to the flock, cold weather etc. Once she is dewormed and her legs get stronger, I think she will be ok.
Here is a link about the antibiotic http://www.drugs.com/vet/terra-vet-10.html and here is a link to the poop chart, always good to have http://www.chat.allotment.org.uk/index.php?topic=17568.0 Here is the dosing link from Kathy, it doesn't matter if it's goat, horse or cattle as long as the same amount of med is in the suspension https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/812128/worming-with-horse-wormer

 

[CrazyBeets]

Lol, I actually did itch her face :/ We have cocktiels too and they like their faces scratched and "hair" pulled so it was something I'm used to doing. I'll hold off on the antibiotics for now, but I'll try the dewormer today. This may seem like a stupid question, but how exactly do I get it in her? It is a milky looking liquid; do I use a measured dropper and just squirt it in her mouth?

Also, what suggestions do you have for deworming the rest of the flock? Do I need to do it individually or can I add it to their water?

 

[justplainbatty]

Lol, I actually did itch her face :/ We have cocktiels too and they like their faces scratched and "hair" pulled so it was something I'm used to doing. I'll hold off on the antibiotics for now, but I'll try the dewormer today. This may seem like a stupid question, but how exactly do I get it in her? It is a milky looking liquid; do I use a measured dropper and just squirt it in her mouth?

Also, what suggestions do you have for deworming the rest of the flock? Do I need to do it individually or can I add it to their water?

That's funny! Yes, they should all be done individually bc it's per #, no way to control that by watering. A small ml syringe or accurate dropper and her esophagus is to the right of her tongue (your left if you are looking at her). It's a pain but well worth the effort. Btw, did you remember to dust her sling?
Would love new pics if you can some time.

 

[deacons]

Not sure if you already went ahead with the dewormer, but I wanted to let you know that you can also use the Safeguard tube dewormer that is made for horses. You squeeze a pea-sized dollop of the paste on bread and feed to them that way. I found that was easier than the liquid in a syringe. Maybe you could return your bottle of liquid for the tube?

You probably got this one?
http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/safe-guardreg;-goat-dewormer-125-ml

But you might try this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Ivesco-235161-SAFEGUARD-10-PASTE-EQUINE/dp/B001BM4NBS

Keeping in mind that I'm no expert, I would be a little nervous about deworming a chicken so underweight. I wonder if you could call a vet to ask if it's safe to do so?

Hope she's still eating and drinking and gaining weight.

 

[CrazyBeets]

Ugh. Pineapple is still around, but she can't stand up on her own or even right herself when she is on her side. It does seem like she's gaining a little more energy, but not weight. These last few nights she has started trying to clean her feathers, but she can't reach her preen gland. That and she sometimes confuses the t-shirt sling for her feathers and spends time cleaning that Lately she has been trying to scratch her chest so she raises her left foot up and kicks.

She seems to be huffing still, so last night I stitched a new sling to lower her butt so she could get some weight off of her chest and it seemed to work out well until sometime over the night she flipped out of it.

We did have a scare two nights ago--I was re-positioning her and she got excited and started frantically eating (I think because I took the weight off of her crop). Well she went to fast and got a piece stuck. She tried to drink some water and flick her head but it wasn't working. I could tell she was choking because her face and comb got really red, like apple red. I pulled her out and started massaging her throat, which didn't work. Luckily my husband came over, pried her beak open and dumped some water in; after a few times she got it down and her color returned to normal, except for little red bruises now on her face

In hindsight, I bet the paste dewormer would have been easier, but I already opened the container and it was like $25! She doesn't put up much of a fight and last night (3rd night) she was much better about taking it. I've been giving her .25ml. I tried to find the dosage in casportpony's signature but I couldn't. .23ml per pound, for 5 days?

I wasn't planning on deworming the rest of the ladies/maybe-rooster, hoping that I could get away without doing it and just using apple cider vinegar but...today when I took Pineapple outside to sit near the other chickens I saw a cecal poo in the chicken run. It looked like it was glistening and for whatever reason I went to take a closer look and discovered that the glistening was actually little worms swimming around. I couldn't see them (they must be really small), but I could distinctly see the waves as they were moving So tonight we will weigh and squirt dewormer in them. I would guess their weight, but we have such a size difference between some of them that we'll just have to do it. I have a crazy plan to weigh them quickly, involving a fish scale and a ribbon noose...I'll let you know if it works. It will be a feat to do them individually because there's 12 of them, but they are all pretty tame and overweight so they don't fight too much and are used to being handled.

For the dewormer--do I need to take any precautions for the actual chicken run and coop? I clean both regularly. The run is just dirt. We have a bunch of decomposing hay bales, so I will throw one in there and then the ladies kick it all around. After a couple of weeks I rake the whole thing out and compost it, then do it again. I made the coop floor removable, so I pull it out and empty the old stuff. It is covered in plastic roofing felt, so I can wipe it down if I need to. For the flooring I usually just dump in some pine bedding to absorb the liquids.

Thanks again!

 

[justplainbatty]

Ugh. Pineapple is still around, but she can't stand up on her own or even right herself when she is on her side. It does seem like she's gaining a little more energy, but not weight. These last few nights she has started trying to clean her feathers, but she can't reach her preen gland. That and she sometimes confuses the t-shirt sling for her feathers and spends time cleaning that Lately she has been trying to scratch her chest so she raises her left foot up and kicks.

She seems to be huffing still, so last night I stitched a new sling to lower her butt so she could get some weight off of her chest and it seemed to work out well until sometime over the night she flipped out of it.

We did have a scare two nights ago--I was re-positioning her and she got excited and started frantically eating (I think because I took the weight off of her crop). Well she went to fast and got a piece stuck. She tried to drink some water and flick her head but it wasn't working. I could tell she was choking because her face and comb got really red, like apple red. I pulled her out and started massaging her throat, which didn't work. Luckily my husband came over, pried her beak open and dumped some water in; after a few times she got it down and her color returned to normal, except for little red bruises now on her face

In hindsight, I bet the paste dewormer would have been easier, but I already opened the container and it was like $25! She doesn't put up much of a fight and last night (3rd night) she was much better about taking it. I've been giving her .25ml. I tried to find the dosage in casportpony's signature but I couldn't. .23ml per pound, for 5 days?

I wasn't planning on deworming the rest of the ladies/maybe-rooster, hoping that I could get away without doing it and just using apple cider vinegar but...today when I took Pineapple outside to sit near the other chickens I saw a cecal poo in the chicken run. It looked like it was glistening and for whatever reason I went to take a closer look and discovered that the glistening was actually little worms swimming around. I couldn't see them (they must be really small), but I could distinctly see the waves as they were moving So tonight we will weigh and squirt dewormer in them. I would guess their weight, but we have such a size difference between some of them that we'll just have to do it. I have a crazy plan to weigh them quickly, involving a fish scale and a ribbon noose...I'll let you know if it works. It will be a feat to do them individually because there's 12 of them, but they are all pretty tame and overweight so they don't fight too much and are used to being handled.

For the dewormer--do I need to take any precautions for the actual chicken run and coop? I clean both regularly. The run is just dirt. We have a bunch of decomposing hay bales, so I will throw one in there and then the ladies kick it all around. After a couple of weeks I rake the whole thing out and compost it, then do it again. I made the coop floor removable, so I pull it out and empty the old stuff. It is covered in plastic roofing felt, so I can wipe it down if I need to. For the flooring I usually just dump in some pine bedding to absorb the liquids.

Thanks again!

Always something right?! Yes, best to keep her weight off her crop. The de- wormer is 0.20ml bantam, 0.23ml LF hen, 0.25ml LF rooster per pound for 5 days. With your one girl being so underweight, accurate weighing and dosing is super important.
What an insane parasite load, that the poop is moving! I can't believe they are living with that! After the de- worming, they should feel like brand new birds! The average life cycle of a worm is 10 days so if you clean your coop every 7 or 8 days, that keeps things in check. There's not a whole lot you can do about the ground except removing a couple inches and excluding the birds from it for a period of time. I'm sure someone has a better suggestion for the ground. De- worming twice a year will help a lot. And, don't feel bad, I've got 17 to do sometime soon here. I just ordered a cat/small animal digital scale for the purpose. (I've got 7 banties in the brooder too) Just for fun, when I brought my crippled 11 month old roo in the other day for a treatment, I took him on the scale with me. He's an RIR and he weighs 8.5 pounds by my scale.With shipping, the animal scale was 60 bucks but, it has the tare feature so i can use it for anything under 44 pounds. It should be here in a week.
Hey, if you've got skype and a portable device, PM me! I'd like to see all your creatures! I'll show you mine if you show me yours!

Edit: typos, what's my deal today?!

 

[CrazyBeets]

LOL I don't have skype, but I did snap some pictures. I didn't think I had any bantams (I just have "chickens," you know?) but now I'm thinking Pineapple and JoJo are bantams. I just thought they were small/young. JoJo weighed in at 2.25 lbs. Bearded Lady (my 'verified' Ameraucana, as in I have seen blue eggs come out of her) only weighs 3 lbs but she is as big as the other chickens, so I am wondering if she is having weight issues from the worms. Here's what I got:

Old ladies:
Fancy Pants, 4 lbs
Sarah Lee, 5.75 lbs
Emo, 5.25 lbs
Chatty Kathy, 4.5 lbs
Cheeky, 3.75
Coco, 3.25 lbs
Tiny, 4 lbs

New ladies (from the auction)
1st batch:
Pineapple, 1.5 lbs
JoJo, 2.25 lbs

2nd batch:
Bearded Lady, 3 lbs
Big Mama, 6.5 lbs
Machine Gun Sally, 3 lbs
Grey Goose, 3.5 lbs

Still not 100% certain that JoJo is a he and not a she, or possibly a he/she. He's got spurs and started getting long neck feathers in until he started molting. I could have *sworn* I heard an attempt at a crow, but it was really more like a chicken drowning sound, and that was only once. He also sits in the nesting box with the ladies and when I pull on his tail, he refuses to get out, kind of like the hens do when they're about ready to lay an egg. Also he keeps somehow using his head to scoop up eggs out of the egg drop and he sits on them (I know they aren't his, because more often than not they are two different colored eggs). So I know that roosters sometimes do that stuff to teach the ladies how to act, but he's really stupid so I don't know if he even knows what he's doing. Fancy Pants likes to stand on the roost and scream at whatever chicken is in her favorite box and I've watched JoJo run in, jump up and stand like right next to Fancy Pants, like he doesn't know what she's saying. Who knows, I'm hoping when his feathers grow in we'll know for sure if he's a boy. When we got him all of the feathers on his back had been pecked off, so he has an apron on. Of course it's a spring green, and had I known he was maybe a boy I'd have made it more manly.

I managed to weigh them last night with a fish scale and an old t-shirt strip. It wasn't their favorite thing to do, but they more or less cooperated. We dosed all of them after they went to bed (it was easier to catch them and they were too sleepy to fight back). I am guessing that we need to start throwing eggs away for a while since they're on dewormer? For how long?

Here's some pictures for you.

Kathy is the most tame, and also a camera hog. She kept photo bombing me.

Kathy again; Fancy Pants is the black one on the left (she looks like she's wearing pantaloons).


Big Mama is the barred rock, Machine Gun Sally is the black one, the black with brown stripes is Bearded Lady, Coco is the dark brown one on the right and I think that's Emo's butt on the right. Pretty sure Big Mama is ancient and that's why they sent her to the auction; I don't think she's been laying any eggs and I never see her in the nesting boxes. Plus she goes to bed super early like an old lady.


This is Tiny. She has no moderation skills when it comes to eating and I often wonder how she doesn't fall forward when her snack pouch is full.


This is JoJo.


Grey Goose (name in progress). She whines a lot.


And me weighing a chicken. It worked out okay

 

[justplainbatty]

Nice pics! So, Jojo, did he/she come with feathers all cut off like that? The wing bays are gone! Looks like either an old she with some old game leanings or a roo with feathers cut to look like a hen. The hackles are pointy but not screaming roo. Old hens often grow spurs, especially in a roosterless flock. Grey Goose looks like an old EE mix. None of them look like true bantams. Bantams are usually 2# or less. No pic of pineapple? If you have some "bantam like" (miniatures) they may be over 2#. Tiny looks like a GL-something....I think, after the de-worming, you will see better weight on all. If she is standing next to a melon rind, not an orange, I would think she is an LF. I think they will all gain a pound at least over time once they're not sharing food and blood with parasites. Watch Tiny, that she doesn't over-stuff and get impacted once she is worm free. Their faces all seem to be of good color considering the problems.

You did fine on the weighing idea! My other option was a commercial hanging veggie scale and putting each bird in a bucket. I would have to stuff my roos in a 5 gallon bucket so, I ordered the animal scale instead.

I'm gonna see if I can find the proper weights for what your birds look like they are. your BR and Sarah Lee are the only ones close to the right weight as far as I can see.