HELP!!! What is this??

[Bawkbok]

Alinas2010 offered a good suggestion. Sunshine and fresh air would help also for brief periods if you have a dog kennel or some place safe for her to rest outside where she could see / hear her flock.

 

[daisyag13]

Does anyone get to come in and visit her? Sometimes that can be good for healing.

Yeah, that's a good idea. I've been thinking myself about taking her outside for some time to enjoy being out, weather has been nice here lately. Not sure that I want to put someone else in with her though since she is still being treated for her infection in her foot. I wouldn't want another chicken to be exposed to what she has, especially with her comb issues too. But Bawkbok also had a great suggestion of putting her near her flock. I think I have another crate I could setup next to the coop and run so I wouldn't have to cart everything around every time (coop is kinda far from our house). Thanks for all the ideas!

 

[daisyag13]

Day 31 update:
Today, still working out her crop issues. She did not drink any of the molasses water on her own, so I've stopped with the coconut oil, massages, and dough crop meds as they don't seem to be helping (all of which is about 15ml). This allows me to instead tube 15-20 ml of the molasses water in her as that seemed to help clear out her system the most. I'm still treating her with the monistat and stool softner, 5 days in now. Her crop is only empyting the 15-20ml every 8+ hours or so. She did have more poop today than yesterday, so hoping the molasses is helping clear everything out. I've done more research and am now going to feed her egg when she has enough room for that so it hopefully won't make the sour crop any worse as her chicken pellets could (which it did as I witnessed 2 days ago). I just gave her 20ml of egg with some nutridrench since it's been another 2 days since she's eaten anything. It's been a crazy balance of keeping her nourished while still trying to treat whatever is going on in her digestion. I plan to check her often and tube as much in her as often as I can to get this taken care of and keep her well nourished.

Yesterday, I was able to soak her foot for about 45 minutes again. It looks notably smaller in size! A lot of the swelling is going down. YEA!!! I've only been soaking her once daily every other day since we've been working on the digestion issues. There are defintely some pus areas that I could remove, but I'd like to have a better handle on her digestion issues first before trying to remove them. Especially since she hasn't been able to eat much the last week. I think it would just be too stressful and hard on her system and make her too weak. I am still applying the disinfectant sprays, betadine, and sugardine mixture to her foot and wrapping it back up. Here are some pics of her foot from last night:

 

[daisyag13]

Day 32 update (yesterday typed this but forgot to post )
Doing more research, I decided to keep up with the dough crop meds as I'm almost positive that's what she had to begin with. They say it's a little trickier to treat and can take up to 7+ days on the meds. I didn't want to stop the meds, then what I'm currently doing with the flushes not work, and have to restart. Def no harm to keep giving her it even as a just in case.

I have decided to switch from molasses water to epsom salt as her flush though. I was afraid the molasses could be feeding the yeast. However, her crop has been emptying better today and she has been pooping more. Both good signs. I managed to give her some yogurt today and plan to try to get at least a Tbsp in her daily.

Before I could change her crate molasses water to ACV water instead, she ended up drinking most of it. It really helped to flush her system out all day yesterday. She had lots of poops and her crop was seemed to go down to at least 1/2-3/4 full when I checked hours later. So I think we're headed in the right direction finally!

 

[daisyag13]

Day 33 update:
So last night soaked her foot again, treated and rewrapped. Since she had so many runny poops yesterday, I decided to wash the underside of her belly and near her bottom since she had been sitting in her poops as I couldn't clean them up fast enough. Also they were very runny and made a bigger mess. She also prefers to lay in this one particular spot, but doesn't necessarily go somewhere else to poop.

After washing her and then blow drying her, I noticed some concerning spots on her belly. Once she was completely dry, I checked them out more closely and she has about 8 small spots that look like what her breast blister looked like. Some even feel the same. A few have a small scab, but most are just red inflamed skin that feel hard underneath. What could be causing this? I know she's laying down a lot, but some are even up near her vent which she definitely can't be laying on that part of her skin. Is it possible for her foot infection to be spreading to other areas of her body?? I seriously hope that's not the case since we've come so far. Thoughts? @Eggcessive @coach723
They are in multiple spots throughout her belly area, so there's really no way to wrap all that. For now, I've just put some betadine on them like I've been doing for her comb. The scabs that looked like they were pus I just went ahead and removed. Here are some pics to show what I'm talking about. They are about the size of a dime and smaller:

Speaking of her comb, one of the scabs came off and another is trying to. Most have black scabs and some have some crusty yellow areas around the outside as well. Still hoping this is just the fowl pox that's resurfaced because of her current health.

On a positive note, her crop was much less full today!! It was about 1/3-1/2 full this morning which is way less than it has been in several days. I had watched a video on Sat where a lady would burp her chicken. I had mentioned previously how it seemed there was air in her crop and tried to get the air out with a massage. This method of gently rolling your fingers up her crop from the bottom worked great. By last night there haven't been any air sounds in her crop, so hoping the sour crop is finally getting under control. Also with her evening meds last night, I was carrying her around with me to get some supplies as I sometimes do. (my kids and dogs stare at me like I'm crazy just walking around with a chicken ) I wanted to give her some egg as nourishment again so I cracked and egg into a bowl and she immediately perked up and dove for the yolk! She didn't eat any, so I tried to encourage her to but she wouldn't. So I mixed it up really good so it was all scrambled and yellow throughout, and then she decided she would eat it! She ate most of the egg all on her own (I added some nutridrench as well).
Gave her the usual meds this morning and offered her more raw egg with yogurt, but she didn't want any this time. I'll try her again later after she's had time to process the meds I just gave her.

 

[coach723]

I honestly don't know on the skin lesions. Could be caused by laying in droppings, even for a short time, particularly since her droppings are not normal. Caution on the yogurt, sometimes that can make things worse. They really don't digest dairy well, so it can worsen slow or sour crops. If you can just give her a probiotic it would probably be better. Sav-a-chick makes a probiotic you can put in water, or you could use something like Probios (multi species), or sometimes I just use human ones and give them a capsule once a day. Her foot does look smaller, so that is good news. I'm kind of hoping the digestion issues were caused by the antibiotics and will improve with time for healing. I don't know how long it takes a chickens gut to heal completely, but my dr. told me humans can take 2 years for the gut to truly recover from antibiotics disrupting the good bacteria.

Kudo's to you for sticking with this and giving her every chance. I worked on a birds foot for over a year once, and then again for almost 5 months, so I know the time commitment it entails. You have done a great job.

 

[daisyag13]

I honestly don't know on the skin lesions. Could be caused by laying in droppings, even for a short time, particularly since her droppings are not normal. Caution on the yogurt, sometimes that can make things worse. They really don't digest dairy well, so it can worsen slow or sour crops. If you can just give her a probiotic it would probably be better. Sav-a-chick makes a probiotic you can put in water, or you could use something like Probios (multi species), or sometimes I just use human ones and give them a capsule once a day. Her foot does look smaller, so that is good news. I'm kind of hoping the digestion issues were caused by the antibiotics and will improve with time for healing. I don't know how long it takes a chickens gut to heal completely, but my dr. told me humans can take 2 years for the gut to truly recover from antibiotics disrupting the good bacteria.

Kudo's to you for sticking with this and giving her every chance. I worked on a birds foot for over a year once, and then again for almost 5 months, so I know the time commitment it entails. You have done a great job.

Sounds, good. I'll just keep treating it with betadine for now. I'm also checking her crate often to clean it out so she's not sitting in the mess for long. And I'll clean her belly when I soak her foot too. I've stopped the flush and focusing more on food, so hopefully her poop will not be so runny.

I'm still sticking with the egg and yogurt mixture for now because my powdered probiotics I have are old. I want to make sure she has good probiotics to continue to fight the yeast. I'll prob go get some powdered probiotics today so I can switch and not cause any digestive upset. Yes, I'm sure the antibiotics were the cause of her digestion issues. But I've learned a lot about sour crop and impaction and what works and doesn't so I'll be well prepared for next time!
Her crop was barely 1/4 full this morning.
Crop issues definitely getting better. Still giving the monistat and dough crop meds. Wondering how long I should keep these up-now have completed a full 8 days of the monistat. Definitely don't want a relapse! I offered for her to eat a scrambled egg or even the raw egg on her own, but she wasn't interested today. I will probably slowly add soft regular food back into her diet and see how her crop does.

I have noticed that she's still limping on her leg and doesn't like to put it down with weight on it for long. I also noticed last night while treating her belly that her shank on the infected leg is starting to swell and turn red. I'm afraid the infection is spreading now. Thoughts? I'd hate to have to go right back to antibiotics after her digestion issues, but can't have the infection spread either. If I should restart an antibiotic, what should it be and for how long? I'd need to get whatever it is now so I'll have it on hand. Hopefully I can find it locally. I already have enrofloxacin.

This is what I've found in my research:
"Antimicrobials used to treat Staphylococcus infections include penicillin, erythromycin, lincomycin, and spectinomycin." MSD vet manual

"The most commonly used antibiotics include cephalosporins, fluoroquinolones, lincomycin, and clindamycin. If osteomyelitis is present, then enrofloxacin and chloramphenicol are often good choices." Poultry DVM

Here's a picture of her leg. I guess it could possibly be from laying on it all day? Just makes me nervous since she doesn't like to put weight on it which sounds more like it's spreading or has infected her bone/tendons.

Also, it's been over a week since I've removed any pus from her actual foot. I actually did sneak a little off the other day but made sure to only pull off any extra that wouldn't bleed at all. I didn't want her to lose any blood with her not having eaten in awhile. Since her digestion is getting better, when do you think she'd be strong enough to handle another pus removal? She ate an entire egg each for the past 2 days. I'm positive that she'll be able to eat at least 2 today since her crop is emptying quicker. I'd like to get rid of this infection as soon as possible but only if she can handle it.