I don’t see too much downside except for aspiration and whether a course of antibiotics is going to upset her digestion like it can with humans. She is relatively easy to handle, was pretty calm for the pill popping, I think she did not mind the burrito wrap, maybe it was easier for her as her feet were more stable than directly on my leg, and definitely calm for the epsom soak - only got upset in the beginning as I lowered her into the kitchen sink, before there was any water in it - I think, like a cat, they don’t want to be put below decks, they always want up for safety. Today I put the scale on top of the feeder, where they never go, and I think the newness helped and the height was an advantage in feeling secure, they all stayed put on it with me hardly touching their feathers. Can the liquid be given in a little ball of bread, like a pill?If we take the the theory that she laid a soft-shelled egg and everyone ate it then the behavior fits. She had trouble laying it but once she did expel the egg she felt better.
If she had an egg break inside her. Once she has expelled it all she will also perk up. The danger here is something remains inside and she develops an infection.
In my experience, if she had/has salpingitis once the tubes are scarred she will have good and bad days. The bad days will correspond to days where she has laid an egg internally. Once the egg absorbs into the abdomen she will perk up again. It will cycle like that until she develops ascites.
The problem with salpingitis is that there is not a lot to help you catch it early. Once there are significant symptoms it's usually too late.
So how does this all help right now? The key to this is to know whether to treat with antibiotics right now or not.
When I'm faced with a decision like this I try to look at the downside. If you treat with antibiotics this will involve handling her a lot. It also involves feeding her a liquid which if you are not comfortable with it can be traumatic and does carry some risk of aspiration. While you should not treat with antibiotics willy nilly because of resistance they are actually pretty safe.
You should make your own list and consider all positives and negatives. I can't tell you what to do. I'm just trying to talk it out here.
I am not a willy-nilly kind of person with this stuff and have thought about it already for a couple days. It seems to me that this might help her if there was or is lingering infection, and so put off something that may eventually be unavoidable. I do think that she has had egg issues all along and it will be her undoing down the road. I had slacked off on the calcium, thinking they had really slowed in laying and wanted to spare their kidneys. I don’t know if that contributed here, but seeing her in distress told me there definitely was and maybe still is a problem. Maybe this can help.
I will look for measuring syringes tomorrow. She weighed 5 lbs 3 oz today. The ounces moved around as they shifted the weight on their feet…