Mama hen, still has sour crop or something else?

[wemimew]

Hi my chicken brains, I need some help with this one. I have a silkie hen that hatched some eggs a while back. While she was sitting she developed an impacted crop, then sour crop, vent prolapse, then gleet - which were all treated successfully. I feel that they were all interconnected from the crop impaction.

Her babies hatched around 4 weeks ago and are doing well - she still has something going on though that I cannot put my finger on. I will break down the symptoms below:

- Watery poops with some solid mass and whole bits of seed found foraging
- Sits funny, like she is waiting for her babies to go under her (even though they are off doing their own business)
- Beak clicking
- Small squishy crop that is usually empty (her poops are not all water so I know she is eating)
- No odour from beak
- Feathers coming in from a hard moult after getting off the nest
- Gradual small weight gain of around 15g per week after getting off the nest
- Seems cold although at one point I swore she felt like she had a temperature
- Seems slightly lethargic although has many bouts of aggressive foraging and is still beating anyone up that gets too close to her babies
- Enthusiastic about eating and foraging, but does not eat enough to fill her crop

I have brought her and her babies into the house as of today for monitoring and so she can be under a heat lamp if she feels like it and will not be stressed by other chooks. I lost a chook to an unknown cause yesterday so as a precaution am treating the flock with Amprolium for coccidiosis starting today. She has access to grit and free ranges so her gizzard should have enough material in it to grind up her food. How should I go about treating this? Should I treat for sour crop again or should I put her on antibiotics?

Thank you all for your time - I love this little bird and I will make an appointment with a vet, although because of all the chaos with the virus/lockdown/etc, it wont be until next week (even then I am not sure that I will be able to go as our government might put us all in lockdown).

 

[wemimew]

Just took her temperature - 40.5oC/105f so in normal range

 

[tbcorum]

Wow I am so sorry u are having such a hard time with ur little girl! I just lost one from gleet & today found my oldest cuckoo with same !! It is so depressing & stressing so I feel ur pain!!
Ur sound much more educated than me when it comes to chickens but here is one thought process I have ?????
Could it be a new weed that is just turning green and they are eating too much of it & throwing their body chemistry out of balance causing this ???? As we know , chickens are non selective eaters - if green and in front of them they eat it !! This is all I can come up with in my little 1/2 chicken brain??

 

[tbcorum]

Just took her temperature - 40.5oC/105f so in normal range

 

[tbcorum]

Or we are infested with black starlings & their poop is toxic ! Could our girls have pecked some of these nasty birds drippings and gotten sick from that?
If outside & a huge flock flies over its bombs away or like at my place they think they can come in and build nest in gutters, inside my building by taking their sharp beaks and poking holes in my siding and going in my attic which attaches to my chicken run so I am constantly having to buy big bombs to run them out !! These are nasty determined birds and will make ur plants die or other animals die if they eat their poop

 

[wemimew]

Update - took her to the vet as she was loosing weight (100g over 3 days) and not responding to the antibiotics I had here. The vet did a C Diff test as that was what I was suspecting - however it came back negative. The vet is treating her for C Perferingens anyway with a different antibiotic (doxycycline) as she said that it does not always show in every fecal sample.

I am on day 3 of antibiotics, her and her babies inside under a heat lamp (although it is not cold here at the moment, I dont want her loosing condition to keep her babies warm). She seems more perky, eyes are more bright, however the poop is still runny with no white urates to be seen (it is fecal material and clear water) and she is not putting on weight yet. Her poop is slightly more digested, however grass tips can still be seen.

Does anyone have any experience with anything like this? Could this be something else that needs a different treatment method?