Advice for weak underweight 5 y/o chicken possibly with worms

[casportpony]

OH! I didn't know they sold things like that! We've always just used aquarium airline since we have stacks of it left over (easy to sterilise too, and we can round the edges easily with the gas stove). I have been thinking about tube feeding, but since she seems to be eating on her own I have been holding off on it. We have some Exact hand-feeding formula that we used when attempting to save Pinky (before we knew it was cancer she had) that is high protein etc, would that be acceptable or should we be making a mash with the pellets and warm water? We ran into clogging problems with pellet-mash last time, but perhaps the 20cc syringe opening is just too narrow, and the 60cc with the catheter tip might be better.

These are the syringes and tubes that we have at the moment:


Also, thank you very much for all your help and your offer of more. You are most kind!

What you have would be fine, but you might want to get a bigger syringe, 'cause your hen can probably take way more than 20ml. As for the food, I use Kaytee.

If you think her crop can hold 60ml, give her 40-60 ml of warmed water with a little sugar, then repeat in 60-90 min if her crop has cleared.

-Kathy

 

[springbok7]

What you have would be fine, but you might want to get a bigger syringe, 'cause your hen can probably take way more than 20ml. As for the food, I use Kaytee.

If you think her crop can hold 60ml, give her 40-60 ml of warmed water with a little sugar, then repeat in 60-90 min if her crop has cleared.

-Kathy

Is that just sugar water or a mash of sugar water with food? If just water, how much sugar is a little? A teaspoon of raw sugar? white sugar? in 40cc of water?

 

[casportpony]

Quote: Do you have corn syrup?

-Kathy

 

[springbok7]

No, no corn syrup. We've got raw cane sugar, white table sugar, molasses, and honey.

 

[casportpony]

No, no corn syrup. We've got raw cane sugar, white table sugar, molasses, and honey.

I'd just sweeten it a little with anything but the molasses. Then give just fluids now, again in 60-90 minutes and post new poop pictures.

-Kathy

 

[springbok7]

Ok, will do. Thanks! Will post back in an hour or so

 

[springbok7]

Ok, I fed her 20cc of sugar-water and so far no different poo. I also tried to clean off her bum, with limited success. it's quite dirty and there are dried hard lumps stuck to her feathers. I can't loosen them without pulling on the feathers, even after soaking them a bit in water, so I've left them alone for now. We have another 3 hours or so of daylight, should I try giving her some of the baby food as well? And I checked, the brand is indeed Kaytee, the same as used in this post. Her crop was empty when I gave her the first batch of water. I'm going to check now and give her another batch if it's emptied.

P.S. I remembered to weigh her just now, she's 1.914 kg (4lb 3.5oz), with a bit of a damp bottom.

 

[casportpony]

Ok, I fed her 20cc of sugar-water and so far no different poo. I also tried to clean off her bum, with limited success. it's quite dirty and there are dried hard lumps stuck to her feathers. I can't loosen them without pulling on the feathers, even after soaking them a bit in water, so I've left them alone for now. We have another 3 hours or so of daylight, should I try giving her some of the baby food as well? And I checked, the brand is indeed Kaytee, the same as used in this post. Her crop was empty when I gave her the first batch of water. I'm going to check now and give her another batch if it's emptied.

I have modified my tubing program since that thread was started and I now concentrate on getting tons of water in them before tubing food. For example, I have a sick peahen that weighs about 6 pounds, so I gave her 90ml of fluids, waited about 90 minute then gave her another 60ml. If your hen was fat, she'd weigh about the same, but I'm guessing she's probably closer to 4 pounds if she's thin. I would definitely try to get 40-60ml of fluids into her now, then again in 60-90 minutes. Then maybe one more time in the morning, and tube Kaytee 60-90 minutes after that. Make sense?

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

@springbok7 , I sent you a PM with my number.

-Kathy

 

[springbok7]

Thanks! I'm going to take the poop to the vet and do the test and hopefully pick up some larger syringes from TSC/Del's on the way. I just gave her another 20cc, but I don't have any larger syringe at the moment. I'll be back soon and give her more, so it's going at 20cc per hour at the moment. BRB.