Dizziness or is this worse than we thought? Update- possible Mycotoxin

[chkn]

You got the Poly Vi Sol without the Iron in it, right? Okay, I'm thinking a couple drops a day.

 

[offdagridsoon]

Thank you..

Yes, it is the one without Iron. He didn't want anything put in his mouth unless he put it in there and, with him being as easily tired as he already is, we didn't want to stress him unduly and so I tried putting a few drops of the Poly Vi Sol at the bottom of a custard dish with the contents of a 400IU Vit E capsule in there as well. I was pretty surprised when I dipped his beak into it and he started drinking it! Kind of him to make it easier..

This was right after he ate most of 2.5mg of prednisone disguised in a halved blueberry.

He had a milder head-twisting episode earlier today, a while after he had the medications and ate some food and water. It subsided pretty quickly, but I didn't want to get too hopeful just yet. I've been physically encouraging him to drink more of the acv water today by supporting him while I dip the tip of his beak into the waterer, though I haven't had to much of that this afternoon - most times I'd go out he would drink some water of his own accord. A little while ago he was even trying to preen himself, which I think is another good sign. *crosses fingers*

It was a little later in the morning by the time we got him his prednisone today. I know there are issues with rebounding with the prednisone if he were to suddenly stop getting it. Would it be a problem to back up the timing of giving it to him by an hour each time, considering we are giving it to him twice daily? (ie: we gave it to him at 1100 this morning, so would it be alright to give it to him at 2200 tonight vice 2300, and then at 0900 tomorrow morning vice 1000?)

 

[Squishypuff]

The meds work very quickly- but remember to follow through with the entire treatment, don't stop when he seems normal. That Pred needs to be tapered off slowly. BUT, I did not give it at exact times, just when I got up in the am and when it was convenient in the pm. Did not see any ill effects.

I took all the pill bits and ground them to dust, then dumped them in a syringe with the liquid vitamins and the gel from the vit E capsule and shook it up. Easier to give, just shoot it into the mouth.

Good luck!

 

[offdagridsoon]

Thanks Squishy...it's a relief that we don't have to worry too much about the timing. It was a bit of a circus giving him the selenium and prednisone at the same time last night, each piece of pill tucked into a seperate pea. Ted LOVES peas and to say he devoured a number of them yesterday afternoon would be putting it lightly! Unfortunately, we waited a little bit too long to give him the medication and it was pretty close to their normal 'bedtime', the result being that he was more interested in going to sleep than eating. There was some persistent effort to get the peas into him, but I'm not sure all the meds made it into him. sigh. We'll try to do it more in line with his own normal timings today, and that should be a bit more successful I'm thinking...

Is there some sort of trick to getting foods/liquids into a birds beak when they would rather not have them in there? I don't know if we just weren't being assertive enough about it for fear of stressing him too much, or if there's a handy way of getting them to say 'aaahh' that I don't know about yet..

 

[Squishypuff]

I gently open the beak, and slowly drizzle the med/water mixture down the bird's throat. They can't resist if you're holding the beak, it's pretty easy. Just be careful not to drown the bird with a big squirt of the stuff. I squirt a little, let go and let the bird do it's little nibbly drinking thing, then go back and give some more when it's done swallowing.

 

[offdagridsoon]

I may give that a go! I did realize this morning though, that putting the pill in a small glob of cream cheese was a good (if slightly messy) way to go - he just about took my finger off trying to get at the cream cheese!

Since it had been a couple of days since we finished with his course of Tylan, we dosed him with 0.1cc of Ivermectin last night. The whole lot of them are due for worming/delousing and I found lice on him. I'm sure if there were anything else internally it wouldn't help him to recover, so I hope the Ivermectin helps.

He seems quite a bit more listless today, but it's been quite hot & humid out the past couple of days...enough so that we moved him into the bathroom in a large cat carrier so he could be somewhere a little more climate controlled (we don't use a/c though, and are keeping him out of drafts). Would it be expected for the dose of Ivermectin to have him a little more out of sorts? He has no interest in his feed right now, but did go after the cream cheese, and also drank up some yogurt and some Pedialite when I dipped his beak in them.

I'm hoping he's just tired out from being through so much.

 

[offdagridsoon]

I just posted another thread with a title that is more in line with what I'm wondering about our 'roo and his condition:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=6949626#p6949626

 

[Squishypuff]

I don't know... I personally would not have done the Ivomec until the illness stuff was done with, seems like it would be rough during an illness. I would have either dusted or sprayed for mites and waited a bit to de-worm. But, what's done is done and you really can only do your best when it's unclear what you are dealing with. I wish I could be more helpful, his extra symptoms are really puzzling.

 

[offdagridsoon]

Thank you Squishypuff..

We're having a heatwave here right now (of course!) so we've got him in the (non air-conditioned) house with us. Makes it easier to nurse him anyway..

He can kick and push with his legs, but not stand, and can still flup his wings. His vision is fine from what we can tell, and although he does not seem to want solid food right now he will still drink water and drinks up yogurt with more interest than he does the water. Any eating and drinking he does, however, is with assistance as his neck is still limp. He's got enough strength to try and turn his head to look at things when I'm holding his head up for eating/drinking, but not enough to lift his neck up himself.

His crop, though, is getting gassy and I'm 'assisting' him in burping throughout the day by massaging his crop a little bit, but gently and with his head held up. A few days back his crop would gurgle when he would drink, but that noise isn't happening anymore, just the gassiness. I'm positive that the gurgling was from his crop and not his lungs. He was swallowing properly, and was sitting 'straight' with his head held up a proper distance, and he was getting breaks in between sips to finish swallowing (for which he made all the swallowing motions) as well as to breathe in between sips. His crop isn't hard (except for immediately before he burps, but then it goes soft again), but feels somewhat squishy.

Does this sound at all like sour crop, do you think?

 

[offdagridsoon]

So here we are, going into the third week of Ted's mystery illness. I tried again to find a vet who knew anything about chickens and ended up talking to someone who, while not accustomed to dealing with chickens, has worked with birds a few times before. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but I'll take what I can get right now.

I gave her his history and what we'd done with him to date and she said that all sounded reasonable, but that she was puzzled by the duration of his illness. She said her first impression would have been Mereck's or Botulism, except that with either of those, the treatment and the length of time he's had his symptoms, he would either have gotten better or been dead.

She said we could try giving him a penicillin based antibiotic to see if it helped. I was curious if the Tylan we had originally given him, if it wasn't the 'right' antibiotic, still did enough good to just prolong the symptoms. So we started giving it to him and I kept researching. I found some literature on Mycotoxins right around the same time as Ted started gasping for air more and started getting a slightly bluish tinge to his comb.

I then remembered that on a couple of occasions we had found mold growing under the feeder in the coop, as water had gotten under it due to proximity and the fact that we have ducks who are constantly splashing about in the waterer and anything else they can find. I got rid of the mold when I found it, but I'm wondering now if it wasn't fast enough to prevent Ted from pecking at some spilled bits of feed that may have gotten the mold spores on them? His symptoms seem to match up with what I've seen on this site, as well as other sites, when it comes to mycotoxins. Some of the literature I read mentioned that antibiotics in the presence of mycotoxicity can be quite a bad thing for the obvious reason - it's not picky on whether the bacteria it's killing is 'good' or 'bad'. I am of a mind that this would explain his sudden downturn after starting with the penicillin shots.

We've stopped the shots and been loading him up on yogurt that has extra probiotics (from a capsule) mixed into it, as well as been loading him up on water that has a crushed garlic clove floating in it, since yesterday evening. No ACV in the water, as it seems it's a no-no when it comes to fungal infections. His comb appears less bluish than it did last night and he's not gasping as much this morning. *crosses fingers* Based on information I found on this site, we'll be putting Copper Sulfate in his water for no more than a 3 day period, at the rate of 1/8tsp per gallon. I'm going to do some research on here regarding usage of Pau D'arco in chickens, as it is an amazingly effective natural antifungal. Lastly, I am waiting to hear back from the vet and will have her call in a prescription for Nystatin to see if that helps as well.

Positive thoughts please...