Mystery malady! Slimy poop, not drinking

[LaFleche]

I think it's time to go to the vet.

This seems like the right thing to do.

Is it an avian vet or at least somewhat knowledgeable regarding birds/chickens?

 

[azygous]

Your hen may be suffering permanent damage to her intestines from the coccidia. (Necrotic enteritis) Sometimes the intestinal lining gets eaten away and bacteria then does more damage and it can sometimes be permanent. Such a chicken may not be able to recover and will die from it. Hopefully your vet can pull a trick out of their hat that we haven't thought of.

 

[A Swede in France]

This seems like the right thing to do.

Is it an avian vet or at least somewhat knowledgeable regarding birds/chickens?

The very nice chicken vet is only available on Friday so we have an appointment then. Hopefully Astrid makes it

In the meantime, the lady at the animal pharmacy is preparing a new treatment for us that involves injections instead of administering stuff orally (is it still orally when you have a beak?).

Astrid has also developed some rales, so I'm now very concerned that we're dealing with something progressive and systemic

On the upside, she is drinking and ate some scrambled eggs, cucumber, mealworms and grains. She's weakening though, poor girl.

 

[A Swede in France]

Your hen may be suffering permanent damage to her intestines from the coccidia. (Necrotic enteritis) Sometimes the intestinal lining gets eaten away and bacteria then does more damage and it can sometimes be permanent. Such a chicken may not be able to recover and will die from it. Hopefully your vet can pull a trick out of their hat that we haven't thought of.

Thanks for weighing in!

There is no more blood in her stools so I hope not. She had developed rales though, not to the point of gaping or not getting air, but audible. I live in fear of having accidentally filled her lungs trying to get medicine into her. I also see if as a sign of progressive illness or something that's gone systemic, which is not good.

We're picking up antibiotics and vitamins for injections at the vet's now, and have an appointment with the chicken expert on Friday since she's not in before. Hopefully more effective delivery of meds will help until we hau the real appointment.

 

[LaFleche]

Thanks for weighing in!

There is no more blood in her stools so I hope not. She had developed rales though, not to the point of gaping or not getting air, but audible. I live in fear of having accidentally filled her lungs trying to get medicine into her. I also see if as a sign of progressive illness or something that's gone systemic, which is not good.

We're picking up antibiotics and vitamins for injections at the vet's now, and have an appointment with the chicken expert on Friday since she's not in before. Hopefully more effective delivery of meds will help until we hau the real appointment.

Fingers crossed that she will make it until Friday and your vet will be able to help her !

 

[A Swede in France]

We made it to the vet but it was too late. Astrid died just as we got back home. It's hard feeling like we failed her, not getting help fast enough because she was looking a bit better last Sunday which made us wait calling the vet. I'm also sad her last hours were stressful being transported in the crate. It sucks.

She had painful lesions in her throat and was very weak. The vet thinks she had chlamydiosis and gave us the correct and only antibiotic for that. She also showed us how to safely rehydrate and feed a chicken using a long syringe instead of a tube. We had quite some hope leaving the clinic, even though Astrid was very very weak today.

So in the end we learned something, it just sucks that Astrid had to die for us to do so.

Thanks for your support and help from afar, it means a lot Now we go bury her

 

[LaFleche]

I am sorry you lost her despite all your efforts.

 

[A Swede in France]

Here are some lessons in case someone else with a sick one reads this later.

We should have rehydrated and force fed much sooner - we were too scared to do it wrong so didn't do enough. The vet now showed us where the trachea is and what it looks like, and once we knew it was easy to avoid it. I can't believe I didn't Google it before! If you are like us, really make an effort to get someone to show you on person.

We didn't know that the avian vet only works part time so we were too slow getting an appointment. Now we know we can only access her two days a week so I guess I recommend asking your vet about when they are available.

We thought it looked painful for her to swallow, and she did indeed have lesions down her throat. I thought she was done because I didn't see any in her mouth. I just wasn't looking deep enough - again also got fear of bothering her by forcing her break open. So, take symptoms more seriously than your own judgement, and really look, repeatedly.

My guess is that with these points, she would not have died. We can't know of course, and learnings are always valuable to share. I hope mine can help and encourage someone who needs them.

 

[A Swede in France]

I am really sorry to be here again, but another one of our girls is sick in something that might be the same - who knows!

This time it's a little silke, Susu. October 6 she was swollen on one side of her face and a bit fluffed up. Thinking it might be the beginning of coryza and having had good success treating swollen faces before, we gave her doxycycline. The swelling went down in a day, but her health deteriorated fast. October 8 we switched to giving her baytril but that has not led to any improvement.

When Astrid died, she had lesions all over the mouth and esophagus, and probably also in her crop. The vet suspected chlamydiosis and subscribed baytril but Astrid died shortly after her first dose. Thinking about it afterwards we also thought it might be canker of the crop or a more internal trich, so we had that in mind now for Susu.

Susu has no respiratory symptoms at all, and also no mucus, bubbles or liquid in her beak, nares or eyes.

October 6 she ate with good appetite but by October 8 she stopped eating and drinking. We are tube feeding and rehydrating her according to that excellent post somewhere else on this forum. She weights 1 kg and we give her 25 ml of electrolytes with some honey at 90 minutes interval in the morning, followed by feeding of 20 ml exotic bird fortified egg food mixed with water and blended to a paste every 2 - 3 hours. Her crop empties in good order.

She is, however, extremely weak and shows no improvement. Because of this, the similarity with Astrid, and the fact that Astrid had lesions that seem to only have appeared late in her mouth, we got scared it might be trichomonas, so we sourced some Dimetridazole and have been giving her that since the afternoon October 9.

She is now very weak, and also seems off balance, moving a bit erratically, balancing with her right wing on the floor, and generally looks a bit assymetric in how she holds herself. She doesn't roost, and hardly ever lies down, just stands in one spot, often with her head turned sharply to the right. The wing and her neck seem ok as far as injury and she doesn't protest being handled.

Her poops are viscous, liquid, with urates and very green matter (just like Astrid) but that's no wonder since she's not eating. Before she stopped eating her poops were normal. After hydrating this morning she did a big poop, but of that charachter, far from normal (although less concentrated urates). Her poops are so rare that I think we probably should feed her more.

I am at a total loss - other than thinking it's a virus. She should be vaccinated against Marek's or I would be scared of that. The fact that she is off balance really throws me - the stumbling and assymetry of posture seemingly without pain.

Everyone else is fine, no symptoms. We live in an area with lots of wildlife and she free ranges so could have eaten something toxic although that would not explain the swollen face at the start.

I am super thankful to you in this thread for teaching me tube feeding etc last time. Without that she would already be gone I am sure.

If you have any further ideas of insights, I would be most grateful!

 

[A Swede in France]

Ps the vet never ever tests for anything here, I'm not sure why. Leaves me feeling like I'm throwing random antibiotics at her hoping one will work