Ms Purdy Needs Your Help Please

[Jenski]

You can also simply make her crumble into a warm "mush" to encourage her to eat. I do this occasionally for my birds from the time they are chicks. They learn to love it and look forward to it as a comfort food treat, so when it's time for vitamins or oral meds - - or time when they might be in a warm kennel healing from something - - they remember it and eat it willingly.

Just remember to never leave feed "mush" around for more than a day, or it goes sour and can cause other issues.

Good luck! Sleep well, and keep us posted!

 

[Wynette]

good morning! Sounds like she's in the perfect place to get well. Do you have yogurt? Scrambled eggs is great, but you really need to get some nutrition into her. Is she eating at all? Does she have food in front of her all the time? If not, she should. I'd go with her regular feed wetted down a bit to sort of make it clumpy, and then add the scrambled eggs chopped into tiny bits and really mixed in well. And if you have yogurt, that's extremely beneficial. My hope for your girl is that once you get her eating really well, she'll be strong enough to keep fighting whatever the issue is. But, if she doesn't get some nutrients into her, she'll be too weak to fight the bug. Please do look into the baby bird handfeeding formula as well - it's not that expensive, and most pet stores will have it. If you wet down her crumble, you can just sprinkle that in - it doens't take much, maybe a teaspoon of it sprinkled on top or just mixed in (it will make the wet food very thick, so you may need to add some of her water with the electrolytes/vitamins in to thin it a bit - a good way to get more of that into her as well). I just have this feeling she's right on the verge of either getting better or much worse. I hope she gets better SOON!

 

[JP33]

Quote:
Wynette, I don't know if she's going to be able to beat this but I'm doing my best to make her comfortable.

I don't know if she's drank anything since last night or if she's even eaten.

This morning I placed a small bowl of warmed mash with yogurt, sweet potato and egg all mixed together.

When I went back in about 7 minutes later she was slumped facing the bowl, right up against it actually, but I saw no signs she consumed any.

I'm keeping the electrolytes/vitamins water in front of her & offering food in the daytime. She did have two bowel movements, one looked normal. There is a glimmer of hope but she seems to be getting weaker.

What about force feeding her? What instrument to do so and what should I feed her if I do so?


Thanks!


...JP

 

[Jenski]

Wynette, do you think she could be eggbound?


JP, the BMs are a good sign, but the continued weakness is not. I would really watch her food/liquid intake very closely now if you can. I really hate force feeding, but if I had to do it I would CAREFULLY try this with one of my 3 cc syringes (without needle, of course). I get them from the local Tractor Supply.

What is her crop feeling like?

Please keep us posted.

 

[Wynette]

Jenski, no, I don't feel like this is egg binding; of course, I could be wrong, and I'm not a vet, but it sounds to me like one of the many, many illnesses they can get. I've lost several in the very same way you describe, JP - I've been able to save a few, but more times than not when they are displaying this way, I lose them.

Force feeding is your only choice; JP, if you're comfortable, you can actually tube feed her directly into her crop; it's safe, but takes two people. Let me find a thread where I described how to do it...I'll pop it in here when I've found it.

Well, I couldn't quickly find the thread where I describe in detail how to tube feed a chicken - if you think you'd like to try that, let me know. My avain vet showed me how to do it, and I had her remove the tube and then I put it back in while she watched to make sure I had it right. It's not difficult at all.

But, if you prefer feeding via syringe, that'll work too - however, there's actually MORE of a chance that she'll aspirate this way, and it will take a long time to get her filled up. But if you're willing to take the time to do it, it will work!

 

[Andora]

I had a Brahma hen go through almost this exact same thing your hen is doing. She started out just seeming kind of off...standing to the side, eyes open but not really active, a little fluffed up. I isolated her and pampered her with plenty of water and various foods. At first her poop was normal, but then it progressed to white and runny, and eventually green. She got a very slight rattle in her chest, but no swollen eyes or runny nose. Then one night I found her flat on her back dead with her feet in the air! It was so sad, she was one of our favorite girls.

I'm very careful about biosecurity, so I panicked and took her body to get a necropsy at our university's animal diagnostic lab. (It only cost $10!) The results showed that she had a lot of staph in her body and a type of pneumonia, but no diseases. The doctor told me that she had just succumbed to a bacterial infection, no scary chicken diseases thankfully!

A few months later I had another hen begin to exhibit similar symptoms. As soon as I saw her standing off to the side acting odd I immediately brought her in, pampered her, and gave her grape fruit seed extract in her water. GSE is an anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-fungal liquid. You can buy it at a place like Whole Foods or they even sell it on amazon.com. (It works great for people too!) Three days of GSE in her water along with organic apple cider vinegar, and this hen was 100% normal. She's still out there happily scratching in the snow today! I think she might have also been getting an infection, I guess if their immune system gets low then something simple like staph can cause an issue because they can't fight it off well enough. This hen got sick when she was stressed...we moved her to a new pen and she didn't like it.

 

[JP33]

Well folks, I wish I had better news but unfortunately Ms Purdy died sometime this evening.

I believe this experience has given me knowledge that will hopefully enable me to resuscitate the next one that exhibits these type symptoms.

Next time I would: bring her in much earlier, feed vitamins/electrolytes & monitor carefully. Not that much different really than what I did but I believe she was past the point of no return when I brought her in.

A few days ago she was still eating and drinking, that is when she should have been inside, I missed the mark on this one, but hopefully I will be able to save the next one.

She was a beautiful bird and will be missed.

Thanks to everyone for your precious time and assistance


...JP

 

[heritagebirds]

So sorry about Ms. Purdy, you treated her like a queen, I wish she would've pulled through.

 

[JP33]

Thanks Melissa.


...JP

 

[heritagebirds]

You're welcome... So many nice people trying to help out, this is a great place!