Five-month old Australorp suddenly lame. Update: Now another pullet going lame!

[azygous]

Not what I wanted to see this morning. Another pullet going lame. This makes three pullets out of four going lame.

June, a near twin of May, was puffed up and sitting down to eat her food this morning. I tossed some BOSS and watched the pullets all move toward them. June was slow and hesitant and had a slight limp. May continues to improve and moves faster than June.

What on earth is going on? It is not affecting any chickens in the other coop. Just these particular pullets. I'm going to call Privett Hatchery this morning and run this by them.

 

[TwoCrows]

Not what I wanted to see this morning. Another pullet going lame. This makes three pullets out of four going lame.

June, a near twin of May, was puffed up and sitting down to eat her food this morning. I tossed some BOSS and watched the pullets all move toward them. June was slow and hesitant and had a slight limp. May continues to improve and moves faster than June.

What on earth is going on? It is not affecting any chickens in the other coop. Just these particular pullets. I'm going to call Privett Hatchery this morning and run this by them.

Oh gosh, this must be some sort of Mycoplasma like MS. MS attacks the hocks and foot joints of young birds, it's a bacterial infection that is incredibly hard to treat. I had it in my flock of young Australorps, took months of Baytril usage to stop the lameness, however my birds never had it in the hocks or hips, only foot joints with tons of bumblefoot as the synovial fluid leaked into the foot pads. You need to get a vet do a blood sample and check for Mycoplasma Synoviea.

 

[azygous]

I spoke with Privett, and am waiting for a followup call back from someone familiar with their inhouse breeding program. Not surprising, no one has called them with concerns such as mine.

 

[azygous]

@TwoCrows Mycoplasma synoviea is what I first suspected, and what caused me to start May on amoxicillin immediately. However, there are no respiratory symptoms. None of the three affected pullets has ever shown any respiratory symptoms.

As for getting a vet to test for this, I'm currently snowed in and probably will be for the next several days until the foot or more of snow on my 1000 foot driveway melts down enough to drive out. I'll phone my vet and ask about this test and if they can do it or if they have a lab that can do it.

 

[azygous]

@TwoCrows I did a quick search on amoxicillin and found it's a beta-lactam antibiotic and not effective on MS. I do however, have some Clyndmycin 150mg capsules and this drug is effective for MS. Can you help me figure out the proper dose for pullets around two pounds? And duration of treatment? Is this a good drug to try for this issue?

I also have Tylan 50 on hand. Would that be better?

 

[TwoCrows]

@TwoCrows Mycoplasma synoviea is what I first suspected, and what caused me to start May on amoxicillin immediately. However, there are no respiratory symptoms. None of the three affected pullets has ever shown any respiratory symptoms.

As for getting a vet to test for this, I'm currently snowed in and probably will be for the next several days until the foot or more of snow on my 1000 foot driveway melts down enough to drive out. I'll phone my vet and ask about this test and if they can do it or if they have a lab that can do it.

@TwoCrows I did a quick search on amoxicillin and found it's a beta-lactam antibiotic and not effective on MS. I do however, have some Clyndmycin 150mg capsules and this drug is effective for MS. Can you help me figure out the proper dose for pullets around two pounds? And duration of treatment? Is this a good drug to try for this issue?

I also have Tylan 50 on hand. Would that be better?

Respiratory ailments are not always present. Only one bird in my flock had a slight runny nose. MS seems to attack the joints, followed by the liver which I had several with hepatitis.

MS is extremely difficult to treat with most drugs. I had NO luck with anything else but Baytril along with Doxycycline, period. A few birds recovered in 2 weeks, a couple others in one month and one took 14 weeks of antibiotics. They all eventually recovered, of course I was told to cull the entire flock because they were carriers. I did move all of them to new grounds, new coop, new equipment. I did add new birds to my flock eventually and yes the new birds turned up sick a year later. So just so you know.

If this is MS and it is only up in the hocks, it may not be as easy to treat because the fluid keeps building up. In my birds it all leaked down into the foot pads like bumblefoot. So there I was daily for months on end doing bumblefoot surgery to drain the pus, if I didn't do a daily foot surgery they couldn't walk. I swear I went through 10 miles of vet wrap and yes the Baytril was incredibly expensive. But this was my first flock and as curious as I was about learning chicken medicine, I used this as a learning opportunity to heal them. Nobody ever died from the MS, at least not that I am aware of.

 

[azygous]

@TwoCrows there has never been any swelling of the feet in any of these pullets.

 

[LaFleche]

@TwoCrows there has never been any swelling of the feet in any of these pullets.

You may want to get them tested for Marek's. Take a blood sample from the vessel underneath the wing and send it in.

 

[TwoCrows]

@TwoCrows there has never been any swelling of the feet in any of these pullets.

Yes, there was always swelling in between the webbing. With bumblefoot you never see swollen webbing. It's been almost 10 yrs, let me see if I have a photo...

 

[TwoCrows]

I do not have any photos. But if there appears to be a big bubble like swelling along the inside of one of the toes in the webbing, fluid is pooling in the pad. You can not pop this bubble, you need to drain it through the foot pad.