dose for calcium carbonate in egg binding

[khind]

I'm sorry to hear that
Had you noticed any change of shape or color in her eyes?

I know you'd mentioned you had Marek's in your flock. Unfortunately it can take it tole on some birds regardless of vaccination status. The vaccine doesn't prevent infection from the virus, it may help prevent or limit tumor formation and clinical signs.

Getting testing, if you haven't done so will give you some definitive answers. Some do vaccinate their own flocks. Do your research to determine if that's the best course of action to take. Others try to breed for resistance.

You may be interested in these articles.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/the-great-big-giant-mareks-disease-faq.66077/

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...-i-learned-to-deal-with-mareks-disease.76944/

Thank you for the articles. I've read the Great Big Marek's article before, a few times. It was helpful.
I'd never read the other one though. I just skimmed it and one thing that jumped out is that the herpes virus in the eyes / blindness is painful! That never occurred to me! All the more reason to act fast.
Another thing I saw is that Marek's can manifest itself in chicks in seizures. Omg. I had a hatched chick, part of the flock with 2 who both ended up going blind at 1 and 2 yrs old, who suddenly had violent seizures, at possibly 4 weeks old! It was absolutely horrible, and the chick did not survive.

I will return to this article. I see there's a lot of valuable information.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Thank you for the articles. I've read the Great Big Marek's article before, a few times. It was helpful.
I'd never read the other one though. I just skimmed it and one thing that jumped out is that the herpes virus in the eyes / blindness is painful! That never occurred to me! All the more reason to act fast.
Another thing I saw is that Marek's can manifest itself in chicks in seizures. Omg. I had a hatched chick, part of the flock with 2 who both ended up going blind at 1 and 2 yrs old, who suddenly had violent seizures, at possibly 4 weeks old! It was absolutely horrible, and the chick did not survive.

I will return to this article. I see there's a lot of valuable information.

I must admit, I have only skimmed the article by @microchick myself. It's on my dig deeper list along with tons of other research...
Anyway, I'm sure she would kindly discuss symptoms you see, give any additional tips and some encouragement along the way. She's been very helpful to others. The tag will alert her to this thread, even though your aren't the OP, I'm sure it's fine to continue here on this one so others may learn along the way as well. I learn a lot from others.

I'm so sorry that you are dealing with all this, I do hope things get better.

 

[microchick]

Thank you for the tag @Wyorp Rock.

@khind, I am so sorry that you are going through this with your hen. I will be glad to talk to you about Marek's Disease.

For now I have skimmed the last two pages of the thread and get an idea of what you are going though and what you are dealing with.

I did look at the pictures of your girl's eyes. I had 3 birds with OMD and I have to say my first impression of her eyes are that they look pretty normal compared to what mine looked like. They call OMD Gray Eye because the iris of the birds eye takes on a sickly greenish gray color and the pupils on my birds became pinpoint and misshaped.

The color is a bit odd but the pupils look pretty normal.

Have you checked her pupils for reaction? Shined a light quickly in her eye to see if her pupil constricts in a darkened room?

 

[Lizzy733]

No, she wasn't vaccinated. I should learn how to vaccinate hatched chicks for a future time.
Wow, how long did your hen end up living after salpingitis - and a tear? I always hear that once you see a lash egg, the hen is on borrowed time. That's wonderful that you were able to treat her to get her to get past such a rough stage. Did it take more than a round or two of anti-inflammatories and liquid ca?
Thanks for the information on ca with vit d.
By the way, I had wanted to get liquid ca for this girl since I'd seen someone on a fb chicken health group had used that for her egg-bound hen but couldn't find the post and info again when I needed it. Is there a certain kind you would recommend?

I'm in nz, so we will likely have very different products, but I got mine in the bird\parrot section of our local chain pet shop. I think it's vetafarm liquid calcium plus vitamin D.

My girl was a pullet when that happened just about a month into lay and managed to tank the infection herself and her fever had broken by the time I got her to the exotics vet, so we were lucky. I had her inside and was spoiling her rotten while we waited out the vet visit. It was early days and I wasn't so knowledgeable, so threw out all the stops, offering her things like garlic powder covered dried crickets and apple cider vinegar. She was also getting epsom salt soaks and a blowdry after daily. Not sure if the garlic helped, as it's meant to help with infection, but nowdays, I'd opt for polyaid, which is my go-to rescue vitamins for poultry.

She only had one round of meds and was back to putting shells on in about a week or so. Her shell quality was permanently affected and she would lay corrugate shells and sometimes a shell with a half patched hole, but that was pretty much the end of the soft shells. She would lay most days, with maybe one or two days off in a week.

She was a shaver and lived to just under 3 years old. I lost all my shavers at the same age a few months apart and each died of genetic\reproductive issues. She stopped eating and wasted away quite quickly after finishing her winter molt. I suspect tumors, as her two sisters went in similar fashions, one with 'lumps' and ascites.

I don't keep shavers anymore. They just end up physically wreaking themselves, poor things.

 

[khind]

Thank you for the tag @Wyorp Rock.

@khind, I am so sorry that you are going through this with your hen. I will be glad to talk to you about Marek's Disease.

For now I have skimmed the last two pages of the thread and get an idea of what you are going though and what you are dealing with.

I did look at the pictures of your girl's eyes. I had 3 birds with OMD and I have to say my first impression of her eyes are that they look pretty normal compared to what mine looked like. They call OMD Gray Eye because the iris of the birds eye takes on a sickly greenish gray color and the pupils on my birds became pinpoint and misshaped.

The color is a bit odd but the pupils look pretty normal.

Have you checked her pupils for reaction? Shined a light quickly in her eye to see if her pupil constricts in a darkened room?

I shone my phone flashlight on her eye 1-2" away in the run (in the evening but it wasn't actually dark out) & she didn't flinch and she never moved her head even though I held it for maybe 20 seconds. Pupil didn't change. Then I tried with a couple other nearby hens who were looking to see what I was up to, and they reacted to the flashlight and/or phone being held up to them with concern and maybe even fright. I'll admit their pupils didn't constrict all that much, but they did constrict whereas I didn't see anything with this girl. That was with one eye anyway. The other eye was a little hard to get to. I did try later that night in the garage though, where it was dark, and her pupil still didn't seem to change.

But... she attacked small bits of moistened food last night, which sure made it seem like she could see! So I may have done a bad job of testing her eyes. I'll try again. Or maybe one eye is still good... But I also wonder if she's just weak from possible reproductive infection & then maybe eating less as a result of that.

I still have not put her down. This week at work has been just horrible time-wise & I've had so much work to do that I came in to accomplish something before going to get her off the roost last night. Then, when I got her and brought her in, I fed her some wet food (with some PoultryCell) - and that's when I noticed that she was still perkier than she had been the day before, And that she seemed to be able to see! So I fed her again right away, and she could perfectly pick out the very small random chunks that fell onto the floor.
So I decided to order some amoxicillin, since neither TSC nor another feed store carries any. It might be a moot point, because I might not be able to fix the egg-laying problem, but I'll get it anyway and watch her closely and remain flexible in deciding til it gets here.
This a.m. she was all spunky and ate like a champ. She had not done that the a.m. before. She also vocalized and walked around the garage to explore. Then she walked right to the water when I put her in the run with the others. She jumped onto the roost bar of the run from the floor with no problem...
Tonight we have a mandatory late night at work so I'll check and bring her in as soon as I get home. At least the weekend will be here so I can care for her more. I teach, and we're right in the middle of state testing, or I would have tried to bring her to work, into a spare room across the hall.

 

[khind]

I'm in nz, so we will likely have very different products, but I got mine in the bird\parrot section of our local chain pet shop. I think it's vetafarm liquid calcium plus vitamin D.

My girl was a pullet when that happened just about a month into lay and managed to tank the infection herself and her fever had broken by the time I got her to the exotics vet, so we were lucky. I had her inside and was spoiling her rotten while we waited out the vet visit. It was early days and I wasn't so knowledgeable, so threw out all the stops, offering her things like garlic powder covered dried crickets and apple cider vinegar. She was also getting epsom salt soaks and a blowdry after daily. Not sure if the garlic helped, as it's meant to help with infection, but nowdays, I'd opt for polyaid, which is my go-to rescue vitamins for poultry.

She only had one round of meds and was back to putting shells on in about a week or so. Her shell quality was permanently affected and she would lay corrugate shells and sometimes a shell with a half patched hole, but that was pretty much the end of the soft shells. She would lay most days, with maybe one or two days off in a week.

She was a shaver and lived to just under 3 years old. I lost all my shavers at the same age a few months apart and each died of genetic\reproductive issues. She stopped eating and wasted away quite quickly after finishing her winter molt. I suspect tumors, as her two sisters went in similar fashions, one with 'lumps' and ascites.

I don't keep shavers anymore. They just end up physically wreaking themselves, poor things.

Yes, I actually could try garlic and maybe even turmeric as well, until antibiotics arrive. I decided - tentatively anyway - to keep trying with her. I posted some details as to why in my reply just now to microchip.
I don't know what shavers are, but it sounds like possibly what we refer to as production breeds. I unwittingly hatched 2 production breed hens 2 years ago. Their laying also shuts down at around 2 yrs of age, and they're prone to bad reproductive problems. I just put one of them down a couple weeks ago because she suddenly started having problems, and she was at that age. It didn't get any better after a couple weeks, and I didn't want her to suffer while i tried things in vain. I learned from that and I, too, will try my hardest not to end up getting one of those breeds. There are so many mixed breeds out there though, that I'll probably have to source pure breed eggs to avoid it.

 

[Lizzy733]

Yes, I actually could try garlic and maybe even turmeric as well, until antibiotics arrive. I decided - tentatively anyway - to keep trying with her. I posted some details as to why in my reply just now to microchip.
I don't know what shavers are, but it sounds like possibly what we refer to as production breeds. I unwittingly hatched 2 production breed hens 2 years ago. Their laying also shuts down at around 2 yrs of age, and they're prone to bad reproductive problems. I just put one of them down a couple weeks ago because she suddenly started having problems, and she was at that age. It didn't get any better after a couple weeks, and I didn't want her to suffer while i tried things in vain. I learned from that and I, too, will try my hardest not to end up getting one of those breeds. There are so many mixed breeds out there though, that I'll probably have to source pure breed eggs to avoid it.

Yes, brown shavers and hylines are the production reds we have here.

The NZ genepool in general is a bit all over the place as it is prohibitively expensive to do imports due to bio-quarantine requirements so what we got is all we're getting. The plus side of that is a few less diseases making the rounds, but still. Means any breed we want that's not here ends up being a backyard breeding project and any that are rare have quite small genepools to choose from.

I wont do production breeds again. It was intentional at the time and they were lovely girls, but we dont need that volume of eggs or the resulting heartbreak it causes when your babies get 'sick'. I did a year of volunteer work at a bird rescue facility (nz loves its natives) to really school up on giving them more healthy outcomes, but all I got out of it for them was a way to ID issues and make cull decisions at the right times. No saving them once their genetics catch up with them unfortunately.

 

[khind]

Ok... She can definitely see. Omg. I just brought her in off the roost to the garage in the cage, and while she ate, in moderate lighting, I unintentionally flashed my headlamp in her eye and her pupil dilated in response. So I tried the other eye - same thing! And she can see everything I put in front of her down to individual crumbles.

She's ravenous again, even more than last night, and ate everything in sight (wetted feed). I don't want her to gorge (couldn't that cause sour crop or something like that?), however, when I paused for 20 min the other night between feedings for the same reason, she was fully asleep when I returned for her 2nd meal & wouldn't eat. I didn't want that to happen again, so I fed her 3 consecutive amounts of food, only separated by about 4 minutes - just enough to make another helping. I hope I won't regret that.

Although yesterday she laid a barely encased but sizable yolk and white (which I thankfully saw and scooped up immediately after to remove from the run), today in the nest pad I found a tiny thing with no yolk. Pic included.

 

[Lizzy733]

Ok... She can definitely see. Omg. I just brought her in off the roost to the garage in the cage, and while she ate, in moderate lighting, I unintentionally flashed my headlamp in her eye and her pupil dilated in response. So I tried the other eye - same thing! And she can see everything I put in front of her down to individual crumbles.

She's ravenous again, even more than last night, and ate everything in sight (wetted feed). I don't want her to gorge (couldn't that cause sour crop or something like that?), however, when I paused for 20 min the other night between feedings for the same reason, she was fully asleep when I returned for her 2nd meal & wouldn't eat. I didn't want that to happen again, so I fed her 3 consecutive amounts of food, only separated by about 4 minutes - just enough to make another helping. I hope I won't regret that.

Although yesterday she laid a barely encased but sizable yolk and white (which I thankfully saw and scooped up immediately after to remove from the run), today in the nest pad I found a tiny thing with no yolk. Pic included.

Good to hear her appetite is improving.

Hmm, might be lash material but I'm on the fence. Was it rubbery? Did you cut it open and look inside? When my girl was laying lash eggs, they were either brownish or greyish from memory and were curdy, like cottage cheese.

Softer is meant to be better, or a less progressed infection. The harder it is, the worse the prognosis. I've heard of them having the consistency of hard boiled eggs.

Definitely check her abdomen for fever. Compare her temp with another healthy bird. I could tell by touch with my girl when she was going through this.

If it is salpingitis, one good thing about it is that it's not generally contagious, so she may not need to be separated or held away from the flock for an extended period of time if she's well enough to be out and about.

 

[khind]

I wont do production breeds again. It was intentional at the time and they were lovely girls, but we dont need that volume of eggs or the resulting heartbreak it causes when your babies get 'sick'. I did a year of volunteer work at a bird rescue facility (nz loves its natives) to really school up on giving them more healthy outcomes, but all I got out of it for them was a way to ID issues and make cull decisions at the right times. No saving them once their genetics catch up with them unfortunately.