Help please: symptoms listed, need opinions!

[aussie_chooken]

Hi all,

Our 10 week old white silkie seems a bit off colour. About 3 weeks ago our 14 week old silkie died quite suddenly after a quick onset of very bad diarrhoea. Since then we have dosed them all on Sulpha D, and they have multi vitamin in their water all the time, and every 2 days a natural probiotic yogurt mixed in with their crumble. and yesterday they all had some wormer in their water.


Her symptoms:


- she feels quite brittle and bony. She was VERY hungry today and did not take her head out of the yogurt mix until it was all gone.

- has been sitting alot with her head resting on her chest, which appears to be quite prominent. she doesn't lift her head up very much.

- her poos look normal and healthy, from what i have monitored.

- she is much more quiet than usual

- she fluctuates between alert and sleepy. she will be dosing with her head on her chest, and then suddenly wake up and run over to the food

- she is walking quite low to the ground

- her tail feathers are not up and poofy like normal, they are low and flat.

what concerns me is the low weight/bony feel of her. but can't make sense of it as she is eating so much. wonder if she is not absorbing her food?

any opinions are a huge help, thanks heaps!

 

[DuckLady]

If you have her isolated and she has good appetite, I was wondering...do you have other chickens and are they perhaps not letting her at the feed because she is at the bottom of the pecking order?

 

[aussie_chooken]

thanks for your reply terrie,

i actually haven't isolated her yet. we watch them alot (there are 7 of them) and there is never any noticeable bullying going on, so i guess my answer is no.

she has always been one to muscle in if she wants something, and she has always been the loudest chirper too.

so... still wondering what to do... such a puzzle!

 

[dlhunicorn]

what wormer did you use? (not all wormers are broadspectrum ... many will only treat one or two types of worms)

 

[aussie_chooken]

UPDATE -

Yesterday morning she did not look good. She went from semi perky to very lethargic, head under her wing, and very runny diarrhoea. all the other chicks were fine.

After a few hours trying to hunt down an avian vet that was not fully booked, and this proved to be unsuccessful, i decided to take matters into my own hands, or we would lose her.

Went back to giving another dose of Sulpha-D in the water, using the dosage for diarrhoea prevention. Then with the chick, gave her the extra drops as per the instructions to treat Cocci and enteritis. this was recommended to me by a chicken breeder who said that the Sulpha-D often cleared up most gut bugs including most types of worm too.

Have also given them boiled rice in yoghurt every day, and mutil vitamin in the water.

Since yesterday there has been a huge improvement. she has gone back to being her vocal, crazy self. no head tucking, her tail is up, she is scratching around and about 90% back to her normal self.

no idea what it was, but she appears to be out of the red zone now. fingers crossed...

thanks for your help! hopefully i won't have to update this thread again...