Help please Sick guinea fowl

[Adrisducks]

Hi, I have 2 guinea fowl almost one year old. Healthy and happy until a week ago one can barely walk. Everything about him seems great, no other issues. At first I thought my rooster just hurt him some how. (The guinea was constantly attacking him, and Mr rooster was being pretty nice imo. I thought he'd just had enough) that's all I can think of. It was one leg and now a week later it's both legs. The legs are curled up, shaky, and won't go flat on the ground. He's getting around more now with both bad legs than he did with one bad one. He's eating and drinking and normal for the most part. Less active of course. I thought he was doing better because for a week he slept on the floor of the coop, but now he's roosting again. My husband thinks it's neurological. Really not finding much online. TIA
-Adrianna

 

[Goosebaby]

Hi, I have 2 guinea fowl almost one year old. Healthy and happy until a week ago one can barely walk. Everything about him seems great, no other issues. At first I thought my rooster just hurt him some how. (The guinea was constantly attacking him, and Mr rooster was being pretty nice imo. I thought he'd just had enough) that's all I can think of. It was one leg and now a week later it's both legs. The legs are curled up, shaky, and won't go flat on the ground. He's getting around more now with both bad legs than he did with one bad one. He's eating and drinking and normal for the most part. Less active of course. I thought he was doing better because for a week he slept on the floor of the coop, but now he's roosting again. My husband thinks it's neurological. Really not finding much online. TIA
-Adrianna

Guineafowl are galliforms like chickens so there’s a possibility that maybe it could have caught a chicken virus like Mereks, though I’m not very knowledgeable about guineas or what diseases they’re susceptible too so there’s a good chance what I’ve said means nothing.

Other possibilities for lameness could be toxins, like lead or zinc, or a tumor pinching off the ischiadic nerve, or a spinal injury from trauma or infection. I’m currently caring for a gander that’s lostand regained the ability to walk from a suspected bacterial infection in the spine.
You could start him on Baytril “ciprofloxacin/enrofloxacin” and see if it helps, or you could try amoxicillin for five days which is the treatment for enterococcal spondylitis. Amoxicillin or Cephelexin if it’s inflamation of the spine from staph or strep. A vet can better diagnose and prescribe those if that’s an option, it might be good to get to the root of the problem if it’s something contagious, if a vet isn’t an option you can get the antibiotics as fish antibiotics, they’re the same thing https://www.countrysidepet.com/collections/fish, but keep in mind, I’m not a vet, so it’s up to you to determine the best care for your guinea.
Sometimes I like to use the symptom checkers on this site for my geese http://www.poultrydvm.com/
I use the chicken one because there’s more to it, but because it’s tailored to chickens it takes a little extra research on your part to sort out if your bird is even capable of catching some of the results.

 

[Adrisducks]

Guineafowl are galliforms like chickens so there’s a possibility that maybe it could have caught a chicken virus like Mereks, though I’m not very knowledgeable about guineas or what diseases they’re susceptible too so there’s a good chance what I’ve said means nothing.

Other possibilities for lameness could be toxins, like lead or zinc, or a tumor pinching off the ischiadic nerve, or a spinal injury from trauma or infection. I’m currently caring for a gander that’s lostand regained the ability to walk from a suspected bacterial infection in the spine.
You could start him on Baytril “ciprofloxacin/enrofloxacin” and see if it helps, or you could try amoxicillin for five days which is the treatment for enterococcal spondylitis. Amoxicillin or Cephelexin if it’s inflamation of the spine from staph or strep. A vet can better diagnose and prescribe those if that’s an option, it might be good to get to the root of the problem if it’s something contagious, if a vet isn’t an option you can get the antibiotics as fish antibiotics, they’re the same thing https://www.countrysidepet.com/collections/fish, but keep in mind, I’m not a vet, so it’s up to you to determine the best care for your guinea.
Sometimes I like to use the symptom checkers on this site for my geese http://www.poultrydvm.com/
I use the chicken one because there’s more to it, but because it’s tailored to chickens it takes a little extra research on your part to sort out if your bird is even capable of catching some of the results.

Wow thank you so much! This is so immensely helpful!

 

[Goosebaby]

Wow thank you so much! This is so immensely helpful!

Just happy to help in whatever little ways I can.

 

[Adrisducks]

Just happy to help in whatever little ways I can.

I'm on day 3 of amoxicillin. When should he start to look better? So I know if it's working?

 

[Goosebaby]

I'm on day 3 of amoxicillin. When should he start to look better? So I know if it's working?

Amoxicillin usually begins to have an effect at 3 to 4 days though it may not be noticable because a bird can’t exactly say they’re starting to feel better. If you think there’s no effect or if they’re worsening then it could be that whatever bacteria they have isn’t susceptible to Amox and it’s time to try another antibiotic “but you should continue the amoxicillin for it’s full treatment,” or the issue isn’t bacterial and could be viral, fungal, parasitical, or physical.

The tough part is guessing what will work without testing, ornithobacteriosis for example is a bacteria that has different strains that are sensitive to different antibiotics, one is treated pretty well with Amox, another isn’t hardly affected by it, so with bacterial infections often vets have to test strain sensitivity to prescribe correctly.
Ciprofloxacin, “also called Baytril or enrofloxacin”is a broad spectrum antibiotic that works pretty well on many things, but not all for the same reason, it didn’t seem to have any effect on my gander which surprised my vet. For him a week of Amox and finishing up the cipro got him on his feet the first time and when he went lame again Doxycycline and Cephelexin seemed to have an effect where the Amox seemed to have little or no effect the second time around. Mind you I went it alone the second time so I’m treating him blind without diagnostic testing and there’s too many variables to really say what is going on with him and what did and did not have an effect.

Azithromycin is an incredibly powerful antibiotic that can knock out a lot of infections in a short time but it can wipe out the gut flora and can damage the heart so that’s one I wouldn’t touch unless necessary and it shouldn’t be given long term.

If it isn’t bacterial it could be a number of other issues like I said so you could try to treat other possible things simultaneously if you’re able, like worming, sometimes birds can go lame if they have worms, the toe curling doesn’t seem like it’s worms but I don’t know much about guineas then again. One thing I read recently is that lameness and toe curling can be a symptom of a riboflavin deficiency (B2) so a good b vitamin complex should be added to his diet just in case, b vitamins also have a protective affect on the organs and can boost the immune system. You can add vitamin c also for that reason but also because it can help regenerate nerve tissue.
Another possible reason for toe curling is merek’s virus, which does not have a cure and is terminal in chickens, I have no idea what it does in guineas or even if they can get it, but it can cause a host of neurological conditions.

 

[Adrisducks]

Amoxicillin usually begins to have an effect at 3 to 4 days though it may not be noticable because a bird can’t exactly say they’re starting to feel better. If you think there’s no effect or if they’re worsening then it could be that whatever bacteria they have isn’t susceptible to Amox and it’s time to try another antibiotic “but you should continue the amoxicillin for it’s full treatment,” or the issue isn’t bacterial and could be viral, fungal, parasitical, or physical.

The tough part is guessing what will work without testing, ornithobacteriosis for example is a bacteria that has different strains that are sensitive to different antibiotics, one is treated pretty well with Amox, another isn’t hardly affected by it, so with bacterial infections often vets have to test strain sensitivity to prescribe correctly.
Ciprofloxacin, “also called Baytril or enrofloxacin”is a broad spectrum antibiotic that works pretty well on many things, but not all for the same reason, it didn’t seem to have any effect on my gander which surprised my vet. For him a week of Amox and finishing up the cipro got him on his feet the first time and when he went lame again Doxycycline and Cephelexin seemed to have an effect where the Amox seemed to have little or no effect the second time around. Mind you I went it alone the second time so I’m treating him blind without diagnostic testing and there’s too many variables to really say what is going on with him and what did and did not have an effect.

Azithromycin is an incredibly powerful antibiotic that can knock out a lot of infections in a short time but it can wipe out the gut flora and can damage the heart so that’s one I wouldn’t touch unless necessary and it shouldn’t be given long term.

If it isn’t bacterial it could be a number of other issues like I said so you could try to treat other possible things simultaneously if you’re able, like worming, sometimes birds can go lame if they have worms, the toe curling doesn’t seem like it’s worms but I don’t know much about guineas then again. One thing I read recently is that lameness and toe curling can be a symptom of a riboflavin deficiency (B2) so a good b vitamin complex should be added to his diet just in case, b vitamins also have a protective affect on the organs and can boost the immune system. You can add vitamin c also for that reason but also because it can help regenerate nerve tissue.
Another possible reason for toe curling is merek’s virus, which does not have a cure and is terminal in chickens, I have no idea what it does in guineas or even if they can get it, but it can cause a host of neurological conditions.

Wow thank you again.
Today will be day 4 of amoxicillin treatment. He doesn't seem to want to leave the coop anymore. I did worm him over a two week period. That's what I thought at first. Then I gave him about a week of vitamin treatment which didn't help. I read a lot about mereks and watched YouTube videos to see what it looks like and it's always complete paralysis with no movement. He's walking when he has to but his toes are completely curled while walking. Not a lot of info on guineas on mereks disease online either.

 

[Goosebaby]

You could try making him shoes to straitened out his toes, maybe part of the issue is that they’re too curled for him to want to walk.

 

[Goosebaby]

How is your guinea?

 

[Adrisducks]

He's more involved in the flock but still not himself. I'm looking for a vet