Calcium deficient chicken not getting better, help!

[Hosscat]

About two weeks ago my chicken went down and couldn't get up. I took her to the vet and he said she was calcium deficient. I've been feeding her milk and cottage cheese, she picks around oyster shells in her food though. She can move her legs and flexs her toes but she can't get up. Does anyone have any ideas or a guess about how long it will take her to get better? She's a young cornish cross and hasnt started laying eggs yet.

 

[Judy]

Crush a Tums and put it in a snack or on a bit of food.

You do understand she was bred to be butchered at 8 weeks or so, right?

 

[threehorses]

Calcium absorbtion is a three-legged stool. You can provide all the calcium in the world, but if the other two legs of the stool aren't in the right amounts the calcium won't absorb.

The three legs are calcium, D3, and phosphorus.

What is her diet exactly?

First, if she's getting more than 5% grains in her diet, then remove them back to 5%, please. It's way more common that the phos in a diet is too high (because grains are high in phosphorus) than too low. If the phos is too high, it'll take the calcium away from her bones to bind with the phosphorus. So adjust that if it's not at the right levels.

For D3, try giving cod liver oil, 2 drops in the beak every other day for a week. Then twice a week the following week. Then once the next week. Alternately, you could feed plain yogurt which is also D fortified but will add living bacteria to the digestive tract increasing your bird's health. Cod liver oil would be my choice for this bird.

For calcium, take your oyster shell and get the "flour" of it - the powdered part, and mix some of that into her feed. Alternately, do the Tums treatment as ddawn said.

Are you intending to keep this bird as a pet or breeder? How old is she? Is she showing any signs of rickets? Did your vet do a blood test for the deficiency, or did he notice that her legs are bowed?

You know, broilers tend to also have other problems that cause them to not stand -primarily the fact that they're quite heavy and, as ddawn pointed out, bred to be slaughtered soon. They shouldn't receive feed free choice, unlike other birds. It should be offered to them intermittently. (See the broiler boards for how they feed and keep a bird sound.) Also there could be other issues like Riboflavin/vitamin B deficiency. It wouldn't hurt to give her a vitamin B-complex tablet in her feed every other day for a week, in the wet mash with her milk or yogurt. Are her toes curled at all?

 

[Hosscat]

She's about 7 months old, and yes she's a pet. Her toes are not curled at all. After she got so big we sent her to live with my cousin who keeps chickens, they mostly gave them cracked corn with oyster shell. When she got sick I brought her back home with me, i've been giving her crushed up chewable calcium tablets, 600mg with vitamin d for about three days now. I gave her a spoonful of cottage cheese with oyster shell for about a week. During the day I pick grass and stuff for her to nibble on. She doesnt seem particularly huge or anything that would keep her from walking. She started out limping a bit. I'm very new to this, she doesn't seem to have rickets other than she can't walk. She lays on her sides most of the time, she moves her legs and toes fine she just can't seem to push herself up with them.
I read the broiler post and a few other sites...is there any way to strengthen a chickens legs so it can stand, along with weight loss that can help a broiler like Dandy? I was thinking about making a small swing like device for her, her legs could poke through the holes and the springy cable could hold most of her weight, but she would still be able to have her legs under her, seeing if it made her stronger. The stuff I read about meat chickens going lame has me really depressed.... her legs didn't look like any in the pictures though, not crooked or anything.

 

[threehorses]

Quote:
Well first off, her diet was totaly absolutely wrong. Calcium requires vitamin D to absorb. Corn has - well nearly nothing. It's like if you ate only corn as a diet. How deficient would your diet be? Not enough protein (7% versus the 20% they need), very little of anything. She needs a pellet or crumble as 90% of her diet. The other 10% can be more crumbles, or healthy treats like the cottage cheese, corn chops, etc.

Please put this bird back on a laying pellet or crumble. Then give yogurt daily to replace good bacteria, a vitamin/mineral package in the water for a week. Week two, yogurt once, vitamins can stop. One half of a cooked egg should help get her protein back up to stuff for a week. Then as an occassional treat.

Furthermore to correct the damage done while it still can be corrected, give her drops of vitamins in the beak daily: Polyvisol baby vitamins, the stuff that is not iron fortified, from the vitamin section of most bigger stores. I got mine at Walmart. IT has some B vitamins which likely she needs, and concentrates on the oil vitamins she didn't get while eating corn.

This is a very budget friendly solution.

So a summary:

ASAP: back on crumbles, laying formula, 16 to 18 percent as 90% of her diet.

Week one:
Crumbles, free choice; oyster shell, free choice. Once daily: yogurt (1 teaspoon), 3 drops of polyvisol in the side of the beak, one half a cooked egg or one serving of cottage cheese (2 tablespoons). Vitamins/minerals for poultry in the water as labeled.

Week two:
Crumbles and oyster shell, free choice (continue indefinitely)
Use the polyvisol every other day, the yogurt/egg/cottage cheese every other day. Water based vitamins, if at all, every other day.

Week three: You can start to give her the normal treats of corn, cottage cheese, etc again as normal BUT less than 10% of her total diet.


Reasons:

The yogurt will replace protein and living bacteria through her diet change. MUST be done.
Vitamins: Your bird is anemic and on the edge of death; I feel she can be saved with this simple step of replacing what she's lost.
Egg/Cottage cheese: She's already had it, the protein can help.
Polyvisol: Water vitamins aren't as effective as food or fed vitamins for the oil-vitamins. The oil vitamins (ADE)in polyvisol are active and good. The B vitamins will help her to walk again and add to those already in the water.

ALL of these steps are essential, all work together for one cause. Leaving one out is like leaving out a main strand in a woven cloth. They're all there for the strength of the whole.

I truly believe this chicken has shown extraordinary heart and attempts at healing when all the cards were stacked against her. I feel that you and your friend were trying, but didn't have the right information and were basically making her worse while you wanted to make her better. You've put all that effort into her - now please I ask just to put a little more as I feel it will benefit her, if it's not too late. I believe it's not.

Please put these steps into place immediately for best effect. I'm available here, by PM, by email for ANY questions at any time. I really want to see you have success and am highly invested in this bird. So please, allow me to help you.

As for the swing, If you can simply set her up like she's setting on eggs for a few days, I believe the vitamins will help her to gain strength. Try putting a couple of bricks to each side of her, with towels or paper towels rolled around them. Or something similar. Slings can cause issues. We'll work on getting her leg strength back on week two when we re-evaluate everything and adjust advice as needed.

 

[Hosscat]

Thank you all for your excellent feedback, i'm sorry I haven't done a very good job with my little Dandy... one things for sure, she's sticking with me from now on. I'll make her a small coop here at my house. Hopefully she gets better and I become less ignorant of her needs. I suppose it probably will take quite awhile for her to be able to stand on her own very well again? The vet said about 10 days, it's been a week past that and she hasn't stood yet....but i'm still holding out hope for her.

 

[threehorses]

Well hon, it's ok. If I worried about others mistakes, I'd really be a hypocrite as I've made mistakes too!

That's how we learn. Honestly I'm glad I made some of my mistakes because I can now say "look I KNOW that this advice is good because I've made the mistake and corrected it myself."

As for walking, she will not improve until the building blocks of her improvement start to be put in place. Diet alone won't fix it quickly. She really does need supplementation. But I hear a determination to fix things. What you put into her is what you'll get out.

If the entire program I've put forth is used, sometimes birds heal within 2-3 days to where they can at least stand at the very best. But usually what has taken a long time to actually be set in place takes a long time to repair.

I'm glad to hear that she's going to be with you now. And I do hope you're able to work on fixing her. I'd love to hear what you use and what works, an update. Please be sure to update here as I for one will be subscribed, so I bet others are, too.