St. John's Wort

[chicknmania]

thank you. she's still alive but I'm sure she is not very happy. she can't walk, and can barely eat. She can drink, with help, and drank and drank this morning, I've been giving her gruel with applesauce, vitamins, and electrolytes in it, but she just wants water . It's making me sad. I'm going to have her euthanized tomorrow, if i can get an appointment.

 

[chooks4life]

Sorry to hear that. Any updates?

I've been doing some reading on turmeric and curcumin, and it seems (according to some apparently pretty knowledgeable sources including vets) that the isolated curcumin in pills/capsules etc is far too high a percentage, around 98%, whereas whole turmeric is better to use with the curcumin percentage no higher than 4%. If using isolated curcumin, over a period of a few months in humans it causes severe liver damage. I don't know what it does to animals but they just said 'never' give curcumin isolate to animals, though they're giving them the low dosage of curcumin as part of the whole turmeric and recommending that.

They're also pretty stringent about feeding it with black peppercorns, haven't yet gotten to the bottom of why, but there's a huge group with a lot of vets in it recommending and using turmeric for everything from cancers of all sorts to arthritis and chronic diseases and just about everything under the sun really and there's a lot of very interesting case studies. It's on Facebook, lol. Of all places.

Studies on turmeric on PubMed are plentiful and quite interesting and show it works against cancers of many varieties as well, so it looks like it's definitely worth a go, just perhaps not in isolated form. Or at least, not to be used for long if in isolated form, anyway. Very little is beneficial in totally isolated form, makes sense this would likely not be the exception I guess. I'd be hesitant about using it in any animal with suspected existing liver issues and to be honest almost all domestic chooks fed normal diets fall under that category.

Best wishes. Hope things are okay.

 

[chicknmania]

yes, actually, there are! I've been reluctant to say much, for fear of jinxes, lol.

I stopped the turmeric. The day after I wrote the last post, I just couldn't stand the idea of her not eating, it looked like she was dying but she was wistfully watching the others eat. So, i got some applesauce and started hand feeding her. I added probiotics to it. I was amazed that she ate a little, and then a little more soft food the following day, to which I added vitamin concentrate, and/ or probiotic powder. So, I started her back on the Hypericum. By day three, she was standing up. By day four, she was eating on her own, and we have added moistened pellets to her food. She has increased her food intake and can now eat and drink on her own, though she's still on soft food. She makes determined efforts to avoid taking the Hypericum, and Saturday, she flew out of my son's arms when he got her out so we could give her the HP. She flew several feet and landed among her startled friends. She is still having some problems walking, is very unsteady, but we started putting her in a larger pen during the day so she can maybe practice that and gain strength. I'm not holding out for miracles, but it certainly does look promising! I'm fully aware though that she may decline again, and I'm not sure what the effects of long term use of HP will be. But we'll see. I don't like the Turmeric, they don't like the taste of it and you are supposed to give a lot of it for it to be effective at all. I do think it helped Sparkle, though...our other hen with the neuro issue who made a full recovery using the HP and later the Turmeric. That was a few years ago.

Peaches ' brother became lame very lame a couple of weeks ago. We confined him too but it became obvious after a week or so that he had the disease, too, which I'm pretty sure must be Marek's. He was increasingly lame, and his appetite was off, despite our efforts to help him. He then developed coccidiosis, or at least the symptoms of it, it may have been some bacterial gut infection or who knows. But at that point, I had him euthanized. The rest of the flock seems fine, including Peaches' four other siblings.

 

[chooks4life]

Wow, what a back and forth it's been. Thanks for the updates, great to know!

Fingers crossed. I totally understand the jinxing thing, doesn't seem to matter how much one doesn't believe in jinxes lol... They seem to happen...

Best wishes with her.

 

[chicknmania]

Thank you.

SHE thinks she's ready to rejoin the flock right now, she tried to run out the door of the pen this morning, lol. i'm being more cautious. I'm going to try her in the big pen with perches tomorrow. I'm wondering if gradually reducing the HP would be a better way to go....

 

[chicknmania]

She is so strong now that I'm having a lot of difficulty giving her the stuff at all! she flaps, kicks, looks at her toes, looks at the ceiling, anything to keep from letting me stick that stuff on her tongue, lol! She just had a very slight tremor this morning when she was dancing around waiting for her breakfast. I gave her the HP, but I think I'm going to drop it down to once a day for a few days, just to see. I really don't know what else to do, and I wonder if anyone really knows with this stuff.

 

[chooks4life]

Sounds good! No, I don't think anyone really knows, we're all learning as we go. Thanks for sharing your experiences with everyone.

Best wishes.

 

[chicknmania]

We dropped her to two days at once a day with the HP. Yesterday she had none. She is eating well, and has made two forays outside her pen, to be with the flock. She's not quite ready to go back to the flock yet. She's a little weak. I want to continue with the vitamins for another week or so, before we let her out. I think she will let us know when she's ready. Hopefully she will not back slide again, but that's what I'm watching for at this point.

 

[KelleyKel1032]

I didn't really think it would work.....
Last summer I moved my small flock of bantam cochins to our new house in the country. A small chicken coop and run appeared to be in good shape, so we cleaned and disinfected it as best we knew how. We painted the inside and out, filled it with new bedding and perches. 4 or 5 months later, in November, our first bird showed the symptoms of Marek's Disease. We separated him from the flock (a difficult thing to do, as he was our beloved rooster and we wanted our flock to be able to free range), and kept him in a sterile environment in our basement. He deteriorated daily, leading me to finally take him to our vet (it was the very first time they had ever treated a rooster, haha). Her opinion was Marek's, and I agree with her based on the symptoms and everything I've researched on my own. Their was nothing we could do, he could never rejoin the flock and would most likely become more and more paralyzed until death. A grim diagnosis, and a hopeless one. The disease was likely on our new property where we let our chickens free range, and the probability of them all being silently infected was extremely high.
We strive to treat our animals with respect, and though we all loved our Rooster, we saw no alternative but to cull him.
The next month, a hen started showing signs of the disease. I quickly separated her from the flock and watched for only a few days to see if we were imagining it. We weren't, and so we culled her.
Another month, another chicken. This time, it was another favorite, our Mama hen who had only 4 weeks prior hatched 4 chicks. They were all separated from the flock for observation, and we were sad to see her only hen chick show symptoms.
I was looking for an answer everywhere, I was willing to try anything. I only had 14 chickens when this all began, and I was becoming depressed at the thought of them each dying, one by one. I always check Backyard Chicken's forums for chicken advice, and this time I found your post. It was the only thing I had left, so I bought the little tiny $18 bottle at my local health food store. I got a slightly diluted liquid form with a dropper, and the directions said a child dose was 4-8 drops morning and evening.
I had nothing to lose, so I began treating Mama and chick with 1 drop hypericum followed by a dropperfull of water morning and evening. I was vigilant. And I can't believe it, I didn't really believe it for a long time, but Mama slowly got better! She was almost half paralyzed when I started treating her, and within 4 weeks was walking with a limp, and after 6 weeks was walking and eating and drinking like normal. The little chick did not improve with treatment, unfortunately, and died.
Since the whole flock was likely infected, I also put a few drops in their drinking water daily, for the whole 4 weeks.
I'm afraid to say we're in the clear, but 4 months later none of the other chickens have come down with symptoms. We're watching them and hoping that we never see that droopy wing or telltale sideways walk again.
Thank you for your wise advice!

 

[chicknmania]

Peaches has appeared to make a full recovery.

She returned to the flock three weeks ago. I picked her up today and she has gained substantial weight, and appears quite happy.. Unfortunately, one of her sisters turned up dead lame today. Nothing to see so I'm afraid it's the onset of Marek's for this one too. We culled Peaches' brother a couple of weeks ago, he was dead lame also. This is bad. I'm going to start Peach's sister (Boo) on Hypericum tomorrow, I have to go get some more.