EMERGENCY! Can I give Baytril and Sulfamethazine at the same time??

[thailand]

Hi,

I have a sick chicken who I have suspected has Cocci, but now I'm not so sure. I've dosed with Corrid equivalent available here, dosed for 4 days. No improvement, so changed to Sufamethazine (only sulfa med available here). Dosed for 2 days at appropriate strength, today changed to 1/2 dose.

Not a lot of change....originally wobbly when walking, not eating or drinking that I could tell, yellow/green diarrhea. Now - chicken eating a tiny bit, drinking lot, all the way through has been very alert, talking, now walking normally with no weakness, but still has diarrhea constantly.

Should I just continue or is it time to change to Baytril??

I did worm her with albendazole 7 days ago.

Many thanks

 

[dawg53]

Angela I am so sorry for your loss. It is always so hard to lose a loved animal.

If you are seeing a lot of worms in the poop then the recommended plan of attack is to use piperazine first, followed by albendazole 10 days later. The logic behind this is that piperazine only gets the roundworms, whereas albendazole targets a whole range of worms. If a chicken has a very large worm load then paralysing them all in one go can either lead to a toxic overload from the poisons they produce when they die, or a blockage in the gut caused by a whole mass of paralysed / dead worms that the bird is unable to expel. (All of this is stuff I've learned from @Dawg53 - the resident BYC worming expert!)

I suppose that if you wormed with albendazole and she had a large worm load then it is possible that this caused her problems, although without a necropsy it will be impossible for you to know for sure. Don't be too hard on yourself about things. Even if this was the cause, you weren't to know. We all make mistakes with our flocks whilst thinking that we are acting in their best interest - the only thing you can do after something like that is treat it as a learning curve and try to make sure that you don't make the same mistake again.

The worming routine that I've found online is as follows:

Day 1 (roundworm only) Wazine (piperazine) 80-100mg/kg bodyweight

Days 11 - 18 (all main worm types) Valbazen (albendazole) 1.43mg/kg or flubendazole 6mg/kg daily for 7 days (no egg withdrawal required with either of these) or Safeguard / Panacur (fenbendazole) which requires a 7 day egg withdrawal.

I have wormed chicks aged 8 weeks and upwards using this method - just making certain that I weigh them in advance and stick to the mg/kg bodyweight dosage; I don't know if it's recommended or not, but so far they have all survived!

Wazine dosage is the same whether it's one chicken or 100 chickens, one ounce per one gallon of water.
First time worming should be done with valbazen since it slowly kills worms over several days. It also kills all known types of worms that chickens can get. Tapeworm, eyeworm and gapeworm would require different worming routine when using valbazen. Praziquantel would be best treating tapeworm.

 

[thailand]

Had diarrhea for 8 days already! She's nibbling on some frozen watermelon right now which is good.
Please.....all help appreciated. I don't want to lose her!!!

 

[thailand]

Just been and bought more chicken feed and now been told they do indeed stock the recommended Sulfadimethoxine (as opposed to the Sulfamethazine I bought two days ago).

Should I change to the Sulfadimethoxine??

Should I add Baytril to the mix?

Many thanks

 

[dawg53]

Hello Angela. It's possible you might be dealing with an ecoli bacterial infection in your chicken as evidenced by the yellow/green diarrhea. Your chicken may have been stressed in some manner causing bad bacteria to take over. What you need to do is beat back the bad bacteria and balance it out with good bacteria. Dont give her any sulfadimethoxine since you've already given her sulmet.
Baytril will beat back the bad bacteria but you'll need to give her heavy doses of probiotics, as much as you can in combination with the baytril.
If ecoli infection can be caught and treated early enough, your chicken might survive...it's a 50/50 shot.
If possible, try and get a fecal sample tested to see if your chicken is overwhelmed with the ecoli bacteria, it's the only way to be sure that's what you're dealing with. Ecoli is passed in feces, keep waterers/feeders clean and free of feces.
I hope this helps and good luck.

 

[KayTee]

I don't know about giving sulfadimethoxine and baytril at the same time, but don't forget that sulfadimethoxine, whilst it treats cocci effectively (it's what I use) is also an antibiotic, and too many antibiotics in the system can do more harm than good (one of the side effects being diarrhea).

I am not certain that 4 days on Corid was actually long enough to treat a cocci infection, and if you look up sulfamethazine on Wikipedia it shows as a short acting drug, whereas the sulfadimethoxine that you have now is a long acting one.

If you are still seeing lots of blood or shed intestinal lining in the poop then I would be inclined to start a 5 day treatment with the sulfadimethoxine (I have treated up to 8 days in the past on a vet's recommendation). At the same time I would try and get some probiotics into your bird to help re-establish the gut flora. The best is probiotic powder or tablets from the chemist, but if they are difficult or expensive to get hold of (they are mega-bucks here in France) then live natural yogurt always goes down well!

If you aren't seeing blood or intestinal lining in the poop then maybe it is just that her digestive system is 'off' after the treatment, and she just needs to get it back in balance. A photo or two of her most recent poops would be useful so that we could see what she is producing.

Fingers crossed that your girl starts to feel better soon.

 

[thailand]

Dawg & KayTee,

THANK YOU so much for responding. It is greatly appreciated, living so far away in Thailand, where local knowledge/medication is not always the same as elsewhere.

My hen truly has me baffled. She's very perky and alert most of the time, although mostly sitting or standing all day. She can and does walk, but not far, and it's definately not the same as before. There is no nasal discharge nor any from her eyes. She is recovering from a bad case of mites, which I've been treating for some weeks. She also seems to be molting (or it could be from the mites or roosters).

When she is resting during the day (always sitting down), she has me really worried because she looks like she's died! Then, if I wake her up, she immediately stands up and is Miss Perky again, looking like nothing much is wrong with her.

There is NO blood or intestinal lining in her poops. Never has been. The poops are very watery (granted it's very hot and humid here at the moment, and 2 weeks ago I lost 2 chickens to heat), but they vary from clear water with dark green blobs in, to yellowy-white with bits of green in. She's managed to eat some watermelon this morning, and some grapes and canteloupe this afternoon. That's about all I can get her interested in eating. I have force fed several black soldier fly larvae down her throat a couple of times in desperation. She has lost weight....I need to weigh her though to check by how much.

I haven't bought the sulfadimethoxine yet. I was going to wait on advice given here about whether it's worth switching or not. And, as you say KayTee, the sulfamethazine I'm already giving her is a combined antibiotic as well as cocci treatment.


Dawg, an e-coli infection had crossed my mind. (Thanks for noticing my post, I was hoping I'd hear from you). In your opinion, should I now stop the sulfadimethazine which she's been on for only 2 days. She does appear a little improved having been on this. If your recommendation is that I should stop the sulfa drug and begin a course of Baytril, then that is what I will do. Please confirm.

I'll try to get a photo of her poop and post it here, tonight or tomorrow morning. Can you both please check back here to take a look at it.

Again a big thanks. I love this forum where help is so forthcoming from experienced people such as yourselves.

 

[KayTee]

Having reread the posts in this thread, and since you say you see no blood in the poop I am inclined to agree with Dawg53 about an intestinal infection.
I am on my phone at the moment and can't add the photo I want to, but if you look for clostridium perfringens on BYC you should find a couple of threads that either I or Nambroth have started / contributed to, and they have a photo of poop that Nambroth took. I will try and post the photo here later today, if you haven't managed to post yours first

 

[thailand]

Photos as promised, from this morning. I've just weighed her and am horrified to say she is down from 6 pounds to only 2 pounds!!! I've immediately given her 2 mls of Baytril and taken away the sulfamethazine water. I've now given her vitamins/electrolytes. I need to add that she is still very alert and interested in everything going on around her. She's walking around ok.

Many thanks

Note: the 2nd poop photo below is the best poop she's had in 9 days.

Edited to correct above: Made an error in her current weight. She is 5.07 pounds (down from 6.61 pounds), so actually dosed her with 5mls (soaked pieces of bread and shoved it down her throat). The dosage I'm working on is 1 ml per pound of Baytril 0.5% for piglets. Someone please confirm for me that the Baytril dosage is correct.

 

[thailand]

Today, after giving the Baytril she pecked at some watermelon. Didn't eat very much. I then force fed her 16 x black soldier fly larvae and around 15 mls of baby bird food (via syringe). I think the bird food may have probiotics in it.

She is sleeping more today than she has other days.

Is there anything else I can do for her?? How often should I force feed her the bird food?