Fluid coming from nose, gasping, smelly poop, lethargic, increased water consumption hen

[Chickenmother26]

Hello!

I got a 12 week old hen off of Facebook (I know, not the best idea ) and she seems sick. We’ve had her for 11 days now. We noticed bloody diarrhea the second day, which we treated for coccidiosis using CORID for 5 days, and now she’s on the preventative dose. She immediately had more energy after starting that treatment and we thought that was her only issue, but when she shakes her head she gets fluid on me. I think it’s coming from her nose, her eyes don’t look affected. She will also gape or gasp for air, sometimes for longer periods of time with panting, but not consistently, she’ll just start doing it for a while and then stop. I think she gapes more when she’s trying to relax for a nap. When we give her water she drinks and drinks and drinks and poops lots of watery poops after. I don’t think there’s been a decrease in eating. I think she is lethargic as well, as she’ll fall asleep on me multiple times during the day. I don’t know her regular behavior before she got sick, but that doesn’t seem right for a chicken. She feels smaller than she should, but I also haven’t had her long and haven’t had her breed before (Wyandotte.) She’s been pooping out intestinal shed every day or almost every day since we had her and have been treating her, we were thinking the shed was from her recovering from coccidiosis since the most recent days shed has been inside a healthy looking solid poop, but this morning she had intestine in a bloody diarrhea poop again. Her poops also smell awful, and not just the cecal poops, all of them. I have a long list of things I’m worried could be wrong with her from a respiratory illness, to worms, or even a fungus (aspergillosis.) Does anyone have any idea what this could be and what I should do to make sure she’s healthy?

 

[Debbie292d]

It sounds like she's got a respiratory infection of some sort if she's spewing snot on you when she shakes her head and sometimes gasping for breath.

After the Corid, did you follow up with vitamins? If not, I would at the least put her on Nutra Drench, Poultry Cell, or something like that in her water one day, and probiotics in her water the next. We use Hydro Hen or just give Greek Yogurt a few times a day.

I'm thinking though she might need an antibiotic to beat that. You could try putting Vet RX under her wings and by her nostrils. That's like Vicks for chickens, so won't cure anything but might help her breathing.

Good luck. She's so pretty!

Oh, and P.S. We got the vast majority of our chickens off Facebook. It's also how I found I have a professional breeder of show silkies 1/2 an hour away, so now I just go there and/or poultry swaps.

 

[Chickenmother26]

It sounds like she's got a respiratory infection of some sort if she's spewing snot on you when she shakes her head and sometimes gasping for breath.

After the Corid, did you follow up with vitamins? If not, I would at the least put her on Nutra Drench, Poultry Cell, or something like that in her water one day, and probiotics in her water the next. We use Hydro Hen or just give Greek Yogurt a few times a day.

I'm thinking though she might need an antibiotic to beat that. You could try putting Vet RX under her wings and by her nostrils. That's like Vicks for chickens, so won't cure anything but might help her breathing.

Good luck. She's so pretty!

Oh, and P.S. We got the vast majority of our chickens off Facebook. It's also how I found I have a professional breeder of show silkies 1/2 an hour away, so now I just go there and/or poultry swaps.

Thank you for taking the time to reply!

Yes she sometimes gasps, probably about 20 minutes after being taken away from her water bottle and then when we bring it over to her she drinks a lot. I think she usually stops gasping after that but I'm not 100% sure so maybe she is just very hot? But if so I wonder why she gets so hot and thirsty so quickly in a 65 F ish room.

No we haven't given any vitamins yet. I was going to give her some after finishing her preventative dose which is until Thursday, but maybe I should just go ahead and give her some now? We have poultry cell, hydro hen, & yogurt so I think I'll go give her some vitamins now.

Her most consistent symptom that worries me is the snotty nose, at first we were thinking it could be from her being dusty preening her new feathers, but she's been doing it often enough we got worried. We do have doxyvet liquid broad spectrum antibiotic we can try, but we've been waiting to see if she doesn't get better on her own. We were worried about giving an antibiotic if she didn't need it might hurt her poor little intestines more or just harm her in some way when she's already sick. She's been moving around more and more each day, but still has some watery head shakes, falls asleep on me often (very cute, but is that indicative of another sick issue or still recovering from the coccidiosis?), and the intestine in poop every day, do you know if that's typical with coccidiosis, or if it indicates she had a really bad infection of it?

And thank you! Her name is Maude and we love her very much.

 

[Chickenmother26]

Update: She keeps gaping even after drinking water and I think she feels hot. Still fiesty and chirping though

 

[Chickenmother26]

Update 2: I gave her vitamins yesterday. This morning she pooped some drops of blood, so I started her on wormer, I’m thinking she might have caecal worms since she just got off the CORID. It’s weird the blood is separate from the poop, she kinda dripped it out after the poop.

 

[LaFleche]

After looking at the new droppings I think that Corid did not work and a sulfa drug like sulfadimethoxine trimethoprim or similar is necessary to treat your chick.
Corid does not treat all strains of coccidia.

 

[Chickenmother26]

After looking at the new droppings I think that Corid did not work and a sulfa drug like sulfadimethoxine trimethoprim or similar is necessary to treat your chick.
Corid does not treat all strains of coccidia.

Oh no Okay I ordered some endocox powder I’ve heard is good for treating it. Hopefully it comes quickly

 

[Chickenmother26]

Update: got the endocox a couple days later and treated for 3.5 days (directions said 3 days, but I began treating the moment we got it in the mail so we did 3.5.) I used a liter bottle and 1/4 tsp of the powder (same measurement according to package directions.) The treatment made her poops smell weird and chemically, but she seems 100% better post treatment! It’s been a couple days after now, and she no longer has bloody poops, and her color looks much better. We’ve been giving her vitamins as well post treatment. The package says to re treat in 6 days, so I’m going to try to find the oral dose so she doesn’t have to be brought back in for 3 days. We didn’t give endocox to the other girls because of the dubious egg withdrawal period: online said anywhere from a couple weeks to 70 days. There hasn’t been a lot of research on the medicine in laying hens (oops), but we’ll wait the at least 70 days. I don’t think this new girl will end up laying before then anyway because it’s almost winter. But yay Maude is healthy! Now we’re working on integrating her with the flock

 

[LaFleche]

I am glad it worked and she looks so much better already!

 

[Chickenmother26]

Endocox withdrawal info in case anyone needs: seems these researchers feel that 44 days would bring the residual drug down to a safe concentration, but 70 days will bring it down to 0. Not much research has been done, so I’ll wait the 70 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34020367/