Excessive Thirst and very watery diarrhea

[BeckySue]

Rosa Grande, my three year-old Rhode Island Red, has been drinking tons of water for the past week. She'll go through half a gallon in a day. I isolated her and started her on Spec/Linx 50, thinking a broad spectrum antibiotic would help her. After two full days of this, with her greatly increased water intake, I was fearful that she might be overdosing so I stopped the antibiotic and made up her water with electrolytes and probiotics for chickens. I also thought she might be fighting a fungal infection, so I treated her with miconazole, a single dose in yogurt. She probably got about 400 mg of this in her system before she pooped in the yogurt when she turned to the waterer for a drink.

I plan to continue with the electrolytes and probiotics but wonder if there's anyone here who has experienced this with their chickens. She looks good, her comb and facial leather are bright. She's lethargic and disinterested, but that could be the "washed out" feeling we get when we have bad diarrhea.

I had her poop analyzed by the state and there were no parasites.

And I know this reads like I hit her with the kitchen sink full of drugs, but she's a beautiful bird and I'd hate to lose her.

Any advice is welcome.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

How is her crop?

Is it empty in the morning before she eats?

I don't have anything to add, but wondered about her crop since you didn't mention it.

 

[BeckySue]

Her crop is normal. It's empty in the morning. We just had a girl with impacted crop, so I guess I've been saturated with crop issues I didn't think about reporting her normal crop.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Her crop is normal. It's empty in the morning. We just had a girl with impacted crop, so I guess I've been saturated with crop issues I didn't think about reporting her normal crop.

I hope she gets better soon.

 

[BeckySue]

I'm very sad to report that Rosa died yesterday afternoon. On Friday night, I let her out of her isolation pen and she decided she wanted to flock with her sisters. We already have a bird that was gravely ill and has been ostracized by the flock (Evelyn was beaten severely by the flock, rescued by my husband and is now terrified of the flock, so she lives in her own chicken coop now and flocks with the cats).

I monitored Rosa all day, and saw that she was getting picked on a little by individuals but thought they would not be able to get the upper hand on her since she's so big. But when I went out to check on her the sixth hour of the day, she was under the coop with a lot of feather loss to her head and acting stunned. I brought her inside and cleaned her head and treated her wounds with triple antibiotic cream and watched her. She perked up a little after an hour, so I took her back down to her isolation pen in the garage. Moving her must have been too much. She failed quickly.

She's the third chicken I've watched die and it's so sad; they struggle so much at the very end, as if they recognize their systems are shutting down and fight against it with all the strength they have left.

Our state, West Virginia, has a Dept. of Agriculture Vet who will perform necropsies. I need to know if she died of a preventable disease, what was causing her to pass so much water through her system and to know if her sisters dealt her a mortal blow or her illness took her.