Hazel saw one of the vets today, Dr. Mary Kate, who was not the vet (Dr. Rheanna) that they all saw and who reamed me out after I had treated Anna.
Popcorn went with Hazel and got a little once-over too. They are both in good condition and seemed fine physically other than Hazel's eyes. Popcorn is recovering from her molting & concurrent diet so is in nice condition now, but she has been determined to really pack it in lately so I expect she will soon be in the "over-conditioned" category. She needs to get back to her old self!
The vet took three swabs from Hazel, from her vent (which looked wet, she may have just pooped a wet poop though), from her eyes, and her mouth/throat. Hazel's right eye goes from tiny bubbles (one day one big bubble) to nothing more than looking too wet, no bubbles right then, but I saw them earlier today. The vet thought both her eyes were wetter than normally seen in chickens. The swabs are going for a combined-swab PCR test. "AHDC Avian Myco Panel". Does $152 for the test seem in the ballpark? Next week I'll find out what the vet will want to do with the info, that also depends on how Hazel is doing...
My idea is to establish the presence or not of the suspected mycoplasma with this vet outfit, so if somebody gets in bad trouble again I can hopefully get help quickly. This Dr. did remember how Anna was in trouble, and she told me that the best updates going forward are phone calls, not emails (as I was told by the call center person); that they have trouble staying current by emails because they are all out on the road all the time. Good to know. I had been emailing updates with pictures and then called twice, so if I had been calling earlier during the week maybe that would have had a better outcome.
I did ask about how mycoplasma G. can cause blindness, and the vet said she too thought it was due only to the ocular swelling shut of the eyes. I said I had heard of someone's hen going permanently blind, and she had not heard of that, said that could be caused by corneal scarring somehow, but wondered if it was actually mycoplasma in that case or something else, for which you'd have had to test to confirm.
Popcorn went with Hazel and got a little once-over too. They are both in good condition and seemed fine physically other than Hazel's eyes. Popcorn is recovering from her molting & concurrent diet so is in nice condition now, but she has been determined to really pack it in lately so I expect she will soon be in the "over-conditioned" category. She needs to get back to her old self!
The vet took three swabs from Hazel, from her vent (which looked wet, she may have just pooped a wet poop though), from her eyes, and her mouth/throat. Hazel's right eye goes from tiny bubbles (one day one big bubble) to nothing more than looking too wet, no bubbles right then, but I saw them earlier today. The vet thought both her eyes were wetter than normally seen in chickens. The swabs are going for a combined-swab PCR test. "AHDC Avian Myco Panel". Does $152 for the test seem in the ballpark? Next week I'll find out what the vet will want to do with the info, that also depends on how Hazel is doing...
My idea is to establish the presence or not of the suspected mycoplasma with this vet outfit, so if somebody gets in bad trouble again I can hopefully get help quickly. This Dr. did remember how Anna was in trouble, and she told me that the best updates going forward are phone calls, not emails (as I was told by the call center person); that they have trouble staying current by emails because they are all out on the road all the time. Good to know. I had been emailing updates with pictures and then called twice, so if I had been calling earlier during the week maybe that would have had a better outcome.
I did ask about how mycoplasma G. can cause blindness, and the vet said she too thought it was due only to the ocular swelling shut of the eyes. I said I had heard of someone's hen going permanently blind, and she had not heard of that, said that could be caused by corneal scarring somehow, but wondered if it was actually mycoplasma in that case or something else, for which you'd have had to test to confirm.