Here's a story for everyone to read.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/846873/please-help-with-sick-peacock#post_14278601
She starts by treating with tetracycline in October, then Tylan. Neither worked, so I sent her some tablets in Decenber. If you have time, read it.
-Kathy
Well, I made it to about page 25. i might go back and read some more later!! It was starting to hurt my brain lol!!
I am just really unimpressed with the way my hen is recovering. She has not gotten any worse, but really still not much better. monday will be two weeks of this, and I have never had an animal be that sick for so long without more improvement. I know its only been 2ish weeks, but I'm starting to feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. Also starting to think I might need to set up some sort of outdoor hospital....especially if this is going to keep going on.... it is so hard to deal with the cramped quarters in that bathroom. Do you think there is any reason why my standard breed chickens have all gotten ill, but the bantams are totally fine? My bantams are the only ones still laying.
Also, let me tell you a little story.
A couple months back, my sister and her boyfriend asked me if I wanted this rooster they had. Since I have only a bantam rooster, I said heck yeah I want him. Having never really quarantined in the past (yes, I have learned my lesson now, a very valuable lesson, one I will remember for the rest of my days, and a lesson I will share with everyone who cares to listen), I said I guess just go toss him out there with the rest, they will sort themselves out (I was cooking dinner and it was after dark). I did not lay eyes on the chicken until the next morning. I went out there and turned out to be a hen, skin and bones, looked to have fowl pox (I did not know that is what it was until way later when I saw it on my other chickens, then read about it here, i just thought they were scabs) Had a bad limp (still does, no idea why, leg & foot looks good). Acting very sickly. Immediately removed her from the pen, and put her far away in the back yard by herself to receive some TLC.
A week or two later, looked like the others had acquired her fowl pox, my sick hen I'm treating now was the first one I noticed it on. Shortly after this, my bantam hen, PJ's, got stepped on by a cow & broke her leg and she went to the back yard with "Lucysaurus Rex" the sickly hen from my sister. PJ's has never had any issue, no fowl pox, no respiratory issues, nothing. Healthy as a horse. Aside from the jacked up leg..... The more I think about it the more it nags at me that maybe Lucy brought more than just fowl pox. (They told me all the other chickens they had died, but that they thought the dogs killed them .... my sisters BF had moved and left the chickens at his families house, so I guess he isnt exactly sure what killed them, but Im starting ti think some sort of illness, not dogs.) But if she did bring some crud with her, wouldn't PJs also be sick? Why would everyone just now be getting ill a couple months later? Lucy was in their pen less than 12 hours, I know thats enough to transmit stuff, especially since they got fowl pox from her, and things spread by poop too, but why would they just now be getting something else? ANything with an incubation period that long? Maybe my sick hen has a crappy immune system and thats why she was the first one to get the pox and the first one to get this crud and have it the worst? I wish I could go back in time several months and do all of this over again. I would have put Lucy in a cage all by herself far far away from the others and nursed her back to health from the get-go.
I really wish I had some answers!! So frustrating and I feel so hopeless AND helpless!!
