Day 9 of hen mystery illness

I have no idea what is going on with my little hen, Goldie. She suddenly got ill 9 days ago. Not eating or drinking at all, eyes closed, feathers puffed up. I've been syringe feeding her and treating her with every thing I have. She laid an egg on the 2nd day of the illness, but nothing since. I gave her a nice warm bath yesterday, did not change things though. Her crop feels empty, no stinky smell from her beak. If I can figure out how to upload a video link I will get a clip of her burping/croaking (see #3) Any ideas/ help would be appreciated.

1) What type of bird , age and weight (does the chicken seem or feel lighter or thinner than the others.)
3 year old Ameracauna/Cochin banty hen, 1? lb

2) What is the behavior, exactly.
sudden onset, not eating or drinking, not moving much, eyes closed, puffed up,

3) How long has the bird been exhibiting symptoms? about 9 days, in the past 4 days she has started opening her beak wide and gasping/burping every 5 min or so, in the past day she sounds a little congested, NO mucous or runny nose or eyes though

4) Are other birds exhibiting the same symptoms? No

5) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma. No

6) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation. Nothing really, I was treating her legs with Vaseline for scaly leg mites the week prior. Maybe she ate some?

7) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all. I have been syringe feeding her
yogurt/honey/applesauce/cream.

8) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc. Dark green and runny

9) What has been the treatment you have administered so far? I put her on a few days of Neo-Chlor (Tetracycline, Neomycin)...no change, gave her a Super Booster with vitamins and Penicillin...no change, dewormed her with Piperazine...nothing, today I started giving her Fenbendazole (Safeguard) diluted 1 mL in 1L

10 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet? we have no avian vets in the area

11) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help. No

12) Describe the housing/bedding in use indoor well ventilated shed with wood shavings

ARe her eyes stuck closed? OR is she just keeping them closed? Try gently opening them. I know you are syringe feeding her, but a bird is going to be pretty disoriented if they can't see. I don't know for sure what your illness is, but mine had mycoplasma last year, and popping their eyes open for them really helped. They could see, get to food and water, and some of the stuff that was causing their eyes to close could drain. Of course, they needed meds, too. But either way, a bird that can't see isn't going to be able to take care of itself.

No, her eyes are fine, she opens them every so often, and they look good. When I bring her feed dish to her, she bends her head like she wants to eat, but is not able to pick anything up. Do you know how long it usually takes to see improvement with an antibiotic? I was thinking 2 days, so if there was no change after a few days, I tried her on something else. So far no change :0(

Wow, so sorry you're dealing w/this.

I certainly can sympathize. Have a hen who has not been quite herself for a while. Took a turn for the worse a week ago and have been keeping her in a crate. She's lost a lot of weight. Eating on and off. She's very picky so has been very hard to impossible to get her to eat a lot of things recommended by people on the board, although I appreciate it tremendously. Had though impacted or sour crop. Now not so sure. Nothing seeming to help a tremendous amt. She just hanging in there, that's about it.....

Keep us posted how she's doing...Sometimes helps to know you're not the only one going through this because if it's similar to my situation, people around me think "she's just a chicken". Makes you feel a little isolated in what you're doing. And it gets tiring....but we just keep trying because they are wonderful living creatures....

You are not dosing her properly with the SafeGuard if you are using the 10% suspension. Instead of diluting it (it's wasteful plus it's gonna take FOREVER to get the proper dose into her by diluting it), give her 1/4 mL (milliliter, which is the same as a cc) of the SafeGuard straight from the bottle. If you have trouble finding a way to measure this dosage, your pharmacist should be able to provide you with an eyedropper marked for 0.25, 0.50. 0.75, and 1.0 mLs.

Thanks for correct dosing Chickchick, I have a 1 mL syringe, with 0.25 increments, will give her a dose of 0.25 this morning. Hope is turns things around for her.

Sorry to hear about your hen waghmg...it's so hard when you have no idea whats going on, and they seem to wait for you to figure it out. I have been searching all my reference books and Google-ing my heart out. I will repost with the Goldie's outcome. Good luck to you and yours.

YAY, Goldie seems to be pulling thru! I gave her 0.25 ml of Safeguard this morning. About 4 hours later, after syringe feeding her the yougurt/honey/applesauce mixture, I was holding her in one hand then held a handful of scratch up to her and she started pecking and eating it!!! I was so thrilled...after 10 days of not eating or drinking on her own... I made sure she didn't over do it. A few hours later, I gave her some left over egg noodles and veggies from soup...she was really hungry. She is still quite tired, but seems so much better. My hubby was amazed, he was pretty sure she was done for. I'm so glad I didn't give up. I hope she makes a full recovery, we will see in the next few days. So maybe she had Gapeworm? She didn't really exhibit the symptoms. Would I see worms in her poop? I will be looking. YAY...YAY...YAY...

If she had most any kind of worm it's unlikely you'd see it in her poop, most are microscopic. I have 6 hens, none really had any symptoms of worms, but the lady I'd bought the last few from advised me to DEFINTELY worm once or twice a year. Since they were laying kind of erratically due to molt and weather, I decided that now would be a good time to have the stools checked for worms and medicate if needed. Turns out my girls had both cecal worms (which are nothing to worry about) and cappillaria worms (which can easily be FATAL!!!!). Thank goodness for Dawg and others on this forum for the proper dosing directions. I plan to have my birds stools checked by the vet's office twice a year (costs me $13, I just take in a little bit of several "piles" mixed together, since I figure that if one has something they all have it). So if you have other chickens, you may want to go ahead and worm them too.

I'm so glad to hear that she's doing better! You will need to give her another 0.25 ml dose of the SafeGuard in 10 days. Do not feed the eggs back to the chickens for 10 days after the latest dose, because they may get an overdose of the SafeGuard that way (SafeGuard is extremely safe, but better safe than sorry). I am eating the eggs from my hens during the withdrawl period, as I figure the dose of SafeGuard to me (safe for humans, BTW) is infintisimal (although I won't sell or give away the eggs during this time).

If you are unable to have a stool sample tested but want to worm prophylactically, use eith SafeGuard or Valbazen (best if you can alternate the 2 so as not to build resistance in the worms). Both of them will kill just about any worm that your chickens might get. Wazine kills oinly one type of worm.

You might want to check out this very informative thread https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...ts-is-not-coryza-or-crd-parasites-are-rampant

What does her abdomen feel like? Checking that is very important.
Also....about worming. My chickens are almost 9 years old and I've never wormed them (although they are in a run, not free-range). What I do is collect a composite stool sample at least once a year and take it to my dog/cat vet and they do a stool check. Worming can be very hard on chickens, so I don't do it if the sample is clear.

Country4ever said:

What does her abdomen feel like? Checking that is very important.
Also....about worming. My chickens are almost 9 years old and I've never wormed them (although they are in a run, not free-range). What I do is collect a composite stool sample at least once a year and take it to my dog/cat vet and they do a stool check. Worming can be very hard on chickens, so I don't do it if the sample is clear.

Click to expand...

I agree that regular stool testing, and then medicating ONLY for the specific problem found is the very best way to go. That said, I realize that some people don't live near a vet that can/will do chicken stool samples, so if a person CANNOT test, then it may be best to just go ahead and worm maybe once or twice a year with a BROAD-SPECTRUM wormer (NOT Wazine). I didn't notice that worming was hard on my girls at all. As soon as their feet hit the ground after getting dosed they were completely back to normal, no ill effects whatsoever. I keep rerading about how worming is terribly hard on chickens but I just didn't see that at all.

BTW, I wanted to correct myself from an earlier post. The withdrawal period after last worming is 14 days, not 10 days.