My girl hasn't ate or drank in 3 days*update, I culled her*

I have posted several posts in regards to my girl:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=228248
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=227598
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=227877

I have went back and forth to a variety of reasons for her ailment and have yet to get an answer (which it seems is pretty common). To summarize, she is a 5mo WR, 3 days ago she suddenly became lethargic, refuses to eat or drink and has runny poo. Now, she's getting to the point to where she is becoming dehydrated. I have attempted to have drink off my hand, finger and a medicine dropper. Each time she fights me and I feel like I'm doing more harm than good. She is starting to walk like she's "drunk" and just seems miserable. She is just sitting there, with her eye's closed. I'm new at this chicken thing and I don't know at which point to cull her. The last thing I want her to do is suffer, but if there is a chance she may get better...I'd like to take it. I cannot take her to a vet as my dh will not allow me to spend more $$ on a chicken. So what should I do...I'm just so upset, I hate to see animals suffer

Can you try feeding her baby parrot food? It's my only real suggestion, as my birds will eat it, mixed runny as a paste from a syringe, to get some concentrated nutrition and moisture. Cantaloupe?

Poor thing. I'm so sorry!

I think you should follow your heart. If you aren't able to seek out vet care, (and I understand about spending money with the vet--four cats and a dog), and you don't want to let your little friend suffer, then you already know where you stand. Nobody wants to say goodbye to an animal, no matter how old they are--and they just can't ever be old enough.

Good luck with what you decide.

If she's going to survive, you are going to have to force her to eat... whatever she has, she needs to be strong to fight it.
Try the parrot feed or a mash made from chick feed. Get some Poly-vi-sol vitamins and use an eyedropper or the dropper from the bottle and get some nutrition in her. Also just some water, the lack of water and food make them go downhill very fast. If she's strong enough to fight you on this , she might have enough in her to fight whatever this is.

Good luck..


Nancy

ETA: I just read the other posts... lots of good info there, if you've tried all that, emptied her crop and she's still having issues... then it might be time to cull... but if her crop is empty now and she is just not eating definitely force her to for a day or two to see if she improves. Just like a sick child.. they may hate the medicine but they have to have it to get better...

ditto the above suggestion... the symptoms you gave are so vague , it might be something serious it might not, but electrolytes in the water of a dehydrated bird is a mUST > you cant feed a truly dehydrated bird so rehydration is your number one priority... electrolytes in the waterer along with the baby parrot/bird formula (each separate of course) is all I can suggest at this point. Keeping her in a cool place if it is hot and plugging away every hour or so dribbling the electrolyte water and baby bird formula along her beak is time intensive but it has saved many a bird. Only you know how much time and effort you can expend and if you have noone in your area to help you who has more experience with a sick bird then I expect you will know what is best for your bird and when.

I am sorry to hear your girl is sick.. When 3 of mine got sick a few months ago, they also would not eat or drink anything.. I took 1/2 of a tomato (don't squeeze the juice or seeds out) and held each of them in the football hold.. I then put the tomato (juicy part, not solid pulp sections) up to their beaks and dipped their beaks in the juice.. once they got a taste of it, they would drink the juice a little at a time.. you could probably do the same thing with watermelon or cantaloupe (although you would have to mush it a bit to get it juicier).. Gets liquid in them and gives them some vitamins and nutrients....

Goddess

Quote:
You know when you post, and people reply, and you don't updat that post - we can't help you much. Lots of people have offered help on the other posts. Did you try the advice?

This is what I posted to the top post (I think? There are so many)

First, if her crop hasn't emptied, she is impacted. Has she ever had access to grit? If not, she and all the other birds should always have that before ever having access to anything like grass, etc. And the pebbles in the environment aren't necessarily sufficient as they have different hardnesses and dissolvabilities. They can have plenty of pebbles, but that doesn't mean that the pebbles will stay whole long enough in the gizzard to digest foods. Because of the great deal of improvement in food digestion and weight gain and health when propert granite (hard) type grit is given, it's worth the 5 dollars to buy some. You'll get your money back within 3 months in feed utilization and prevention of issues like this.

IN the mean time, she will need the crop emptied out if it doesn't empty today. Feed sitting in there is rotting. That means that whatever dribbles through will be filled with bacteria and fungus. That's likely why she has the diarrhea - her good bacteria are now compromised, she's getting no nutrition, and the bad bacteria are taking over.

She will also need to have nothing to eat but easily dissolved feeds for the next week. To test, if you can put it in a glass of water for 10 minutes and come back to find it collapsed you can feed it. If not don't feed it. These include: pellets made into "crumbles" in the blender, yogurt, boiled (not scrambled) egg yolk (not whites), a little applesauce (baby food type is best and cheapest) to help cleanse the crop, perhaps some crustless bread if you need it to carry something like oil. Cooked oatmeal, too, IF you put the dry uncooked oatmeal in the food processor and break it down into tiny particles before cooking.

The yogurt's living bacteria help replace the ones that the toxic sludge seeping from her crop into her digestive tract are killing. They also help act against yeast/fungi blooms which are almost the rule in backed up crops.

The applesauce gently cleanses while providing pectin to keep the GOOD bacteria happy. Its pH is conducive to good bacteria thriving, bad bacteria and yeast not thriving. It's easily dissolved and chickens like it.

Boiled egg yolks: filled with nutrition yet easily dissolved, unlike whites or scrambled eggs. Will absorb easily so that she doesn't starve.

Oatmeal: soothing to the gut; birds love it, so it helps hide healthy stuff.

Vitamins: polyvisol non-iron fortified baby vitamins; found in the vitamin section (not baby section) of Walmart, CVS, etc. Because they're not in the water, they are more readily available and direct when given by mouth. You KNOW she's getting them. B vitamins in it will encourage her appetite, E will help inflammation and against some bacteria, A will heal her mucus lining of her crop and digestive tract.

Whether or not you empty her crop, you also would be well served by adding organic apple cider vinegar to her water for a week to help cleanse the sludge, prevent too much yeast from forming (which will just make the crop more slow), and provide living bacteria to help the digestive system not be too poisoned.

I'm also with dawn on not giving too much oil. They will only emulsify with whatever is in there and cause issues.

She will need vitamins as she's not getting nourished as the food is stuck and rotting.

So a treatment (provided her crop empties mostly) would be something like this for a week:

Oil only once a day on a tiny piece of bread.
A daily damp mash of crumbles, yogurt, boiled egg yolk, (and apple sauce every other day). Possibly some cooked oatmeal powder
3 drops of polyvisol vitamins in her beak once daily. NOT in the water or food.
OACV in the water (1 teaspoon per gallon of water)
Free choice crumbles.

Re-evaluate after four days, possibly allowing some gentle solid foods to be introduced slowly and grit at that time. NO grass, NO free range as they will only compound your problems.

Incidentally, no - sand is not big enough. Test: get sand, try to grind up grass or corn with it. it doesn't work. Offer a little more grit - free choice. I'd also highly recommend oyster shell because even Layena is only designed for a scientifically average hen, while "real life" hens can sometimes need as much as double the calcium offered in the average laying product. The manufacturers can't put double calcium in because it would poison the hens that are average or need below average. So we offer oyster shells (not egg shells) because they're an easily dissolvable form of calcium that is very easily absorbed and the chickens are drawn to it. The feed takes care of the phosphorus and vitamin D required to dissolve the oyster shell. If you do this, your new layers (like this pullet will be) will not having near the sort of laying issues they would with no oyster shell provided. It's been the standard for decades, even centuries at this point - despite all new scientific options - it's still the one of choice even by professionals. And it's cheap. smile Much less expensive than antibiotics for peritonitis caused by soft eggs. I just put mine with the grit, or in a two-hole cat feeder. (I bought mine at the dollar store - they don't tip, they're the right size, etc etc. ) Hope this helps!

Last edited by threehorses (08/12/200

Yes, I did...please see the other post that you were asking, again if I did what you asked. I as stated in the previous post, yes I have. Everything but the oatmeal. Thinking that you are very knowledgable on this subject, I did everything you suggested and still no improvement. That is why I posted this post. As stated before this is my first flock of chickens and amongst everyone I know, I am the only one to have them. Hence, my reason for turning to this board. I do not know how, nor have I ever before culled. I've only had dogs and we go to vets if we need to euthanize them. So I apologize for not updating. I will make sure to remember that next time. I wasn't aware that I needed to, since I stated in previous posts that I would take those measures. I will make sure to remember next time. As a pp stated, I'll follow my heart and do whatever. I don't want to "confuse" anyone. Thanks for everyone's time.

I just replied there.

Here's what I said:
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Dribbling in the beak is a great start. The dropping on the chest - not so great. sad GOOD on the crop! That's wonderful news.

Now the smell... was it a cecal dropping? They can smell just disgusting.

And by the way, the grasses and stuff are good for them.... but if they have the grit to grind them up. For now, probably better off for a week without. But the girls all could benefit from them as they're 'living nutrition', green, living, full of good stuff. But that was a sound move.

If you don't read this, then at least hopefully someone else will that it could possibly help. good luck with her!

p.s. By the way - if something does work for you, ask us how to make it work. Different birds require different angles sometimes. smile
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The smelly droppings are a very big clue. That makes everything different. That's the kind of update i was looking for to adjust advice as these things often change a few times before anything becomes clear (if they ever become clear - chickens tend to mask their illness and have vague symptoms that sound like 100 different diseases unfortunately).

I dont' think you're going to have to cull. I'd like to make sure you DON'T have to cull. I think this sounds like something has caused a digestive tract problem, possibly a bacterial infection (likely since her bacteria in her tract seem to be off from head to tail for some reason).

The stuff you dribble make it concentrated. Now that she's giving you really smelly droppings, don't include the egg. What do the droppings *look* like now? Pretty green? A lot or little? Answer if you choose to. We're all still here to help.

Things change; we can adjust and should always adjust to meet your bird's needs. If the advice doesn't work, we need to know. I need to know so I can know it didn't work. I also worry about birds, and their owners and I want you to have a successful treatment program.

August,

I think what 3 horses was trying to convey is that if you keep it all in one post than people that are helping you can follow along with what you've done, what others have suggested and come up with new things. If you keep starting a new thread.. then others have to keep jumping back and forth to see what has happened. Also if I'm trying to follow along and subscribe to your thread and then you start another..then I may not see your new one and give you feedback or new suggestions based on what you've done. again it's hard to follow. The mods will sometimes delete or lock threads on duplicate subjects also.


Hopefully your bird will get better, I had one with wry neck that I had to nurse along.. it was really time consuming and I was only able to do it because I worked from home ... otherwise I may have chose to cull. Unfortunately our schedules sometimes play into these decisions. If you do have to go that route, there are tons of threads on how to cull if you search.. what is okay for some, others cant do, If you get to that point search on it.. there are a lot of humane options you can do at home.

Good luck !