Help! Sick and injured Silkie Roo

[NarrawalleeChickens]

1) What type of bird , age and weight (does the chicken seem or feel lighter or thinner than the others.)
Type: Silkie
Age: Born Oct 6th 2020 (approx 10 months old)
Weight: 620 grams (Considerably lighter than others - can feel breast bone - very underweight)
2) What is the behavior, exactly.
Sleeping a lot
Not moving about much, not very social
In the morning he sometimes doesn't get up and goes and sleeps in the nest box
A bit wobbly no his feet
Didn't go up to bed last night at nightfall. The auto door was closed when I went out to check on him and he was sitting under the coop on the grass (we put him back up with the ladies).
He smells of poo really badly.
3) How long has the bird been exhibiting symptoms?
He has had diarrhoea for a long time that we haven't been able to shake, however he has been really out of sorts since the accident - approx. 2 weeks ago we found him under the house crushed by a ladder, we thought it had killed him but after getting him out and feeding him some scrambled eggs and sitting with him he seemed relatively okay however we believe he had a sore upper leg and may have internal injuries. He is been wormed intermittently with both ivermectin on the back of the neck and levimasole orally.
4) Are other birds exhibiting the same symptoms?
No
5) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma.
No visible signs of injury although he clearly had sore legs after the accident
6) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation.
The ladder falling on him, he was stuck under it for sometime, it could've been up to 12 hours however we believe it was only for a few hours in the morning.
7) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all.
He has been eating/drinking a bit. He eats very slowly for long periods and we don't see him drink as much as we'd like
8) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc.
His poop is pretty runny but varies. I have just had to bathe him as his vent was caked in poo and I was worried his vent was becoming blocked over
9) What has been the treatment you have administered so far?
We haven't done much, we have been keep a close eye on his eating and making appealing meals like scrambled eggs, porridge and moist feed which all our birds love. I have bathed him as he was so filthy.
10 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet?
Would prefer to treat ourselves however I fear we may need have him put down as I think he is in pain. We will take him to the vet if we must.
11) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help.
12) Describe the housing/bedding in use?
We have 6 laying hens, a 5 month old pullet and the rooster in question, popcorn. All are bantams (cochins, silkies and mixes of the two). All 8 birds share an omlet cube - see link https://www.omlet.com.au/shop/chicken_keeping/eglu_cube/ - they free range 600m2 of yard and our under house area all day everyday.

Other things that may be of interest...
Feed - everyone has constant access to red hen 17 layer feed (17% protein, 4% calcium) (https://www.lauckemills.com.au/products/category/QHGILBDD-red-hen-range/6538), as well as shell grit and clean water - Calcium in the feed has concerned me for sometime but I haven't been able to find a good alternative for the whole flock
Vaccinations - none, he was hatched and raised by one of my cochin mummas
Location - we live on the South-east coast of Australia in a temperate climate ( it is Winter at the moment)

I am not sure what to do and think taking him to the vet won't give me any answers but they will just want to put him down. I suppose we are prepared to do this if he is in pain but it would be difficult as the same thing happened to our last roo at a similar age and I really want him to live. We are fairly attached and don't want him to go. Our local vet isn't an avian specialist and there is not one near by. They tend not to know that much about chickens. Our last roo I took to the vet three times and it didn't help, they euthanised him on our finally visit as they couldn't work out what was wrong. Anyway, any suggestions of what is wrong and how we can help get him well would be greatly appreciated. The wobbly-ness makes me think it could be mareks but considering almost all his symptoms (apart from the diarrhoea) have happened after the accident makes me think it might be internal and/or spinal injuries. He has always been a bit underweight which has concerned me and I think this is due to the ongoing diarrhoea but he has certainly lost more weight since the accident.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice!!

 

[JustAChickenLoverOverHere]

@azygous @Eggcessive

 

[azygous]

He may have two separate issues going on. His troubles probably began with the ladder accident, and that may have triggered his downward spiral. He also may have picked up a bacterial infection along the way as his resistance was lowered by shock and pain and loss of appetite.

A chicken can be injured, suffer shock, lose appetite, become weak, pick up a bacterial infection, and all of it can continue to snowball. You need to interrupt the downward spiral.

Right now, give him sugar in his water. This will encourage him to drink more, and it will raise his glucose and give him instant energy, perhaps encouraging his appetite to improve.

Next, you will probably need a vet's help to obtain an oral antibiotic for him. A broad spectrum antibiotic such as amoxicillin or something similar will work on most bacteria. Do this as soon as you can. Usually, we treat a chicken of average size with 250mg of amoxicillin daily for ten days. Your vet may have other suggestions. But get this little fellow started on it as soon as possible.

Keep up the sugar water, and continue with scrambled eggs and anything high protein you think he may eat. I think he has a good chance of recovery. I doubt this is an avian virus. You can give him 81 grain aspirin for pain.

 

[NarrawalleeChickens]

He may have two separate issues going on. His troubles probably began with the ladder accident, and that may have triggered his downward spiral. He also may have picked up a bacterial infection along the way as his resistance was lowered by shock and pain and loss of appetite.

A chicken can be injured, suffer shock, lose appetite, become weak, pick up a bacterial infection, and all of it can continue to snowball. You need to interrupt the downward spiral.

Right now, give him sugar in his water. This will encourage him to drink more, and it will raise his glucose and give him instant energy, perhaps encouraging his appetite to improve.

Next, you will probably need a vet's help to obtain an oral antibiotic for him. A broad spectrum antibiotic such as amoxicillin or something similar will work on most bacteria. Do this as soon as you can. Usually, we treat a chicken of average size with 250mg of amoxicillin daily for ten days. Your vet may have other suggestions. But get this little fellow started on it as soon as possible.

Keep up the sugar water, and continue with scrambled eggs and anything high protein you think he may eat. I think he has a good chance of recovery. I doubt this is an avian virus. You can give him 81 grain aspirin for pain.

Thanks Azygous.

The situation has quickly become more dire. Popcorn (the roo in question) can no longer stand and I have him inside lying down. I have given him sugar water via a needle-less syringe straight into his mouth. I have cooked him an egg yolk and also put some chicken food on a plate infront of him but he can't even stand up and is not eating.

Should I pulverise the chicken feed with some water and feed it to him via the syringe? I already have some chicken amoxycillin so will start that straight away.

Thank you so much for your advice, super duper helpful!!

 

[NarrawalleeChickens]

This is popcorn currently, eyes shut, leg shaking slightly, can't stand up at all with out falling immediately

 

[azygous]

It appears he's dying. Unless this is a sudden acceleration of his overall weakness and the sugar water begins to revive him soon, he may have crossed over to being beyond help.

This also might indicate that an avian virus is in the picture, and I'm wrong in my guess that it's bacterial.

I've seen such dire symptoms. Recently I lost three pullets and they all reached a point very suddenly where they could no longer stand or hold their heads up. Both Marek's and lymphoid leucosis produce similar symptoms prior to death.

 

[NarrawalleeChickens]

It appears he's dying. Unless this is a sudden acceleration of his overall weakness and the sugar water begins to revive him soon, he may have crossed over to being beyond help.

This also might indicate that an avian virus is in the picture, and I'm wrong in my guess that it's bacterial.

I've seen such dire symptoms. Recently I lost three pullets and they all reached a point very suddenly where they could no longer stand or hold their heads up. Both Marek's and lymphoid leucosis produce similar symptoms prior to death.

Okay, thanks Azygous. Yeah, it might be too late for him. I have fed him a few pellets by hand by opening his beak. Is it silly to continue doing this? Am I just prolonging the inevitable or do you think that there is a decent chance he may come through this?

 

[azygous]

Sadly, I've been through this more times than I wish. When a chicken lies down and can no longer lift its head, it's time to end it. When this occurs as part of a long progression of decline, there is not much hope of it reversing at this point. I wish I could give you hope, but it just doesn't look good for this little guy.

Recently, I had a third pullet end up like this. I phoned my agricultural lab that I was bringing them a live chicken for necropsy. I wanted to confirm what it was that was sickening these pullets. I made her comfortable in a box well padded with towels to cushion her journey, drove her a hundred miles to the lab, and they took her gently from me and euthanized her and did the dissection. It was confirmed she had lymphoid leucosis, something I already knew was in my flock.

If you have a university within driving distance, call and ask if they do necropsies in their agricultural labs. You would benefit from knowing what this is and if it's infected your other chickens.

 

[NarrawalleeChickens]

Sadly, I've been through this more times than I wish. When a chicken lies down and can no longer lift its head, it's time to end it. When this occurs as part of a long progression of decline, there is not much hope of it reversing at this point. I wish I could give you hope, but it just doesn't look good for this little guy.

Recently, I had a third pullet end up like this. I phoned my agricultural lab that I was bringing them a live chicken for necropsy. I wanted to confirm what it was that was sickening these pullets. I made her comfortable in a box well padded with towels to cushion her journey, drove her a hundred miles to the lab, and they took her gently from me and euthanized her and did the dissection. It was confirmed she had lymphoid leucosis, something I already knew was in my flock.

If you have a university within driving distance, call and ask if they do necropsies in their agricultural labs. You would benefit from knowing what this is and if it's infected your other chickens.

Hey azygous

Great suggestion to check at universities, there is one a few hours away that I could maybe try. I'm so sorry for your loss, losing chickens is tough, we have lost a few in our time now and would love to be able to get necropsies as it is so valuable to know what caused them to pass and if it will effect the others.

Amazingly popcorn has survived the night!! We were worried that the issue was maybe his body temp had dropped (his temp with laser thermometer was 36Celcius) so my partner did skin to skin contact and we kept him nice and warm and he started to stand up by himself late last night. He slept indoors in the warm and is now eating some scrambled eggs for breakfast. He also didn't poo for like 6 hours yesterday and the turning point seemed to be when he finally defecated and started to stand. He pooed lots of green poo overnight, see photos. Any thoughts on what it could be given the developments? Should I start him on antibiotics?

Thanks a million for your advice!!

 

[Swbertrand1]

I was crying reading azygous' last post above, then saw yours immediately above mine.

He looks 1000% better and is eating a drinking. He may pull through this after all! I'm rooting for him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!