Need Help with Star This is her Poop

[casportpony]

This is what my book says:




FWIW, when my vet prescibed Clavamox 250 for my 4kg peacock, I think it was for two pills twice a day. For the smaller two peahens it was one pill twice a day. @ten chicks has a different book, maybe she will post what her's says.

-Kathy

 

[KayTee]

I'm not certain if that is the correct dosage or not, because its clearly 4 times the doseage amounts that you stated but another BYC thread had a similar dosing to 1/4 tablet every 8 hours. So I went with that. If I've made a mistake and someone thinks I'm giving her too much, please let me know. Thank you!

The dosage I gave is what was on the package of amoxycillin I got from the vet, but having said that, the fact that my girl was so ill, and that it is very difficult to measure such small quantities accurately, led me to give her what was at least a double (if not a triple) dosage. She must have easily been on 50 mg / kg! She was so ill that I took a "kill or cure" approach - luckily for her she came through it, and stayed with me for another 14 months (I lost her a couple of weeks ago to a long-standing respiratory illness - not connected in any way to the clostridium perfringens).

 

[casportpony]

Some cat/dog vets are quite surprised by the bird dose.

-Kathy

 

[KayTee]

I'm going through this with one of my barred rock hens right now. Explosive, very watery diarrhea (and gas) with little bits of undigested grain in it. She was very listless for the first few days (took me awhile to figure this one out), wouldn't eat her favorite treats, and was just acting "off". Was drinking a TON of water.

I'm thinking it's Clostridium Perfringens based on some other threads I read. Started her on Tylan Soluble this morning and will keep dosing their water for 5 days and see if it clears up. Got our Tylan on Amazon.

Cacique it sounds a lot like your girl has Clostridium Perfringens. However, dosing antibiotics in water is not the most efficient way of treating her. The problem is that unless you know exactly how much water she drinks, you cannot guarantee that she is getting a full dose. It is much better to measure out the correct amount for three days, mix it into a measured amount of water or some food, and then divide that into three portions that each give the daily amount. Then give the water drop by drop to the chicken, or make sure that only she gets to eat the portion of food. That way you are certain to be giving the correct amount.

It also worries me that you say you will "keep dosing their water" - are you giving all your chickens antibiotics? Unless they are all showing signs of Clostridium Perfringens (which would be very unusual) then you could be doing more harm than good, by giving them antibiotics unnecessarily. If your girl is still mixing with the rest of the flock then just separate her from the others before you let them out in the morning, or when she goes to roost at night, and give her 5 minutes alone to take her medicine

 

[KayTee]

Some cat/dog vets are quite surprised by the bird dose.

-Kathy

Like many people on BYC, I live in a rural area where plenty of people keep chickens, but to sell for meat or egg consumption. Since vets cost money, and can't prescribe antibiotics to commercial birds, they simply don't see chickens in their practices, because the breeders know that there's no point in taking them in - if a bird gets sick they simply cull it.

I have found a vet who is willing to see my birds, but it seems that she is on the same learning curve as me when it comes to treatments!

 

[RaisinAFlock]

I am in total shock and tears, I just pulled star out of her cage, to manually feed and water her to find something seriously wrong, hunched over, gasping for her, rock hard compacted full crop, full seizure, gasps for air, flipping around, and fell over DEAD. Despite all my best efforts my poor little hen did not survive. :'(

 

[RaisinAFlock]

She died right in front of me in a matter of less than 5 minutes. It was really painful to watch.

 

[RaisinAFlock]

The part that's tearing me up the most is not knowing 100% what killed her, what illiness, or the medicine, liver failure, impacted crop, what?? :'(

 

[Eggcessive]

Sorry for your loss. You could try to get a necropsy done by your state vet, or possibly do one by yourself. The body needs to be refrigerated, not frozen. Here is a link to your state vet: http://www.usaha.org/Portals/6/StateAnimalHealthOfficials.pdf

 

[RaisinAFlock]

I would be willing to perform an autopsy on her myself, although I'm not confident enough to figure anything out 100%, the cause of death may or may not be apparent to my naked eye and it may require tissue samples, something I can't do without assistance, don't know the resources of where to take or send her last locally, but am very concerned about the health of the rest of my flock. Even so, if I'm dealing with something serious, I need to know in terms of contagion, how to dispose of her properly.