Need ER advice. Chicken ate half an avocado skin...looks bad

[basement chick]

Let me tell you a story about being poisoned and using the ingredients you just used on your hen to neutralize exposure to the toxin.

When I was a young mom, I found some beans in the pants pocket of my five-year old as I was doing laundry. I'm mindlessly curious, yes, even after decades of suffering for it, I still am. I bit into a bean to taste it, and spit it right out and rinsed my mouth, spitting that out.

It was a castor bean, and highly deadly. It's where they get ricin.Though I didn't swallow it, it was absorbed into my bloodstream and I began vomiting and having diarrhea. It continued for hours. The doctor prescribed an anti-vomiting and diarrhea pill but it didn't work. I knew I was in deep doo-doo, and luckily recalled the recipe for the universal antidote for poison. (You'd think the doctor would have thought of it.)

I instructed my husband to burn some toast to a black crisp, brew some black tea as strong as he could make it, and then scrape the charcoal from the burnt toast into the tea with a tablespoon of milk of magnesia. He brought it to me, and said it sure looked like a concoction to make me even sicker. I drank it down.

Immediately, the antidote worked. I stopped being sick within minutes, and got steadily better from there. File this away on a note inside your medicine cabinet. Activated charcoal + milk of magnesia + tannin (black tea)= universal antidote for poisoning. Except with chickens you skip the tannin since that is toxic to them.

So, yes, your hen has been saved. She will continue to get better now that the poison has been neutralized. This works on any number of neuro toxins, poison mushrooms, plants, and other toxins from petroleum distillates such as insecticides. Activated charcoal and milk of magnesia should be in every chicken first aid kit.

Wow that is quite a story! I am very grateful for the advice and this forum. I have never seen a chicken look so bad and recover. Of course, I don't think any of them were poisoned. I rarely have an avocado that doesn't get eaten! Those girls had long histories of reproductive issues so I assume that is what did it. Glad you recovered and thank you for your help!

 

[azygous]

Does it work?

I honestly can't say. I did not do any experiments using the scientific method, but I did stuff pits and skins into vole holes and behind rock walls where mice were nesting, and the rodents did seem to disappear. I also had an annoying rabbit problem, and over the winter, I would fire avocado pits over the sides of the saddle I'm living on (far beyond chicken ranging habits) and the rabbit problem appeared to be seriously curtailed for a couple years. That's as good as I can do short of providing a money back guarantee. What the heck. You'd only toss the pits and skins anyway. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

[tripletfeb]

@azygous where the heck did your son get those beans? So glad he didn't eat one!

 

[azygous]

It was back in the 1960s. He was in kindergarten. I don't know where he got them. I asked him and he didn't give me a clear answer. I have no idea why he or any of his friends didn't eat any. I can't tell you why I was stupider than a five-year old.

@MROO I will do an article when I can find time. I did do a quick research on the universal antidote and activated charcoal just a minute ago, and found that milk of magnesia is not recommended when you are using activated charcoal as it decreases the effectiveness of the charcoal. It does, however, work with the tannic acid and burnt toast in the universal antidote.

Activated charcoal is also not recommended to treat poisoning involving petroleum distillates, but I think I would try it anyway if I had a chicken I suspected of ingesting insecticide. The reason is that it can cause vomiting and you don't want petroleum distillates that can be caustic having another pass through the esophagus.

 

[Kathy Golla]

OMG sorry in advance to the OP for making light of a serious situation, but this thread has me laughing so hard. Its the matter of fact way azygous verbally illustrates things, that conjure up the funniest mental images....any time I see "let me tell you a story..." my head whips around!
Firing avocado pits toward rabbits.........
Castor beans in kids' pockets...

 

[azygous]

We aim to inform and if it's entertaining, that's a bonus.

I have been risking serious damage to my brain and eyes by reading scientific articles on tannins and poultry. The reason I slogged through these was to discover if there would be any serious downside to administering the original universal antidote containing tannic acid to a chicken suffering from poisoning. I wanted to know if I could recommend whipping up this concoction that saved my life back in the 60s to a chicken keeper who had a sick chicken but no activated charcoal on hand.

The conclusion I've come to is yes, a chicken can be given the original universal antidote in lieu of activated charcoal. @basement chick this could have saved you the long trip to the store if you already had milk of magnesia, black tea and bread on hand.

It turns out that commercial broiler operations in the Middle East incorporate black tea waste in feed to reduce costs with very little detriment to the chickens. Granted, the tea is soaked to remove much of the tannins, but they are still getting some. It interferes minimally with protein absorption, but long term, not a big issue. You still do not want to feed your chickens black tea, though, as a general rule.

So, bottom line, if you have a sick chicken you suspect of ingesting a toxin, use the universal antidote that includes black tea, burnt toast and milk of magnesia if you do not have activated charcoal.

 

[MROO]

It was back in the 1960s. He was in kindergarten. I don't know where he got them. I asked him and he didn't give me a clear answer. I have no idea why he or any of his friends didn't eat any. I can't tell you why I was stupider than a five-year old.

@MROO I will do an article when I can find time. I did do a quick research on the universal antidote and activated charcoal just a minute ago, and found that milk of magnesia is not recommended when you are using activated charcoal as it decreases the effectiveness of the charcoal. It does, however, work with the tannic acid and burnt toast in the universal antidote.

Activated charcoal is also not recommended to treat poisoning involving petroleum distillates, but I think I would try it anyway if I had a chicken I suspected of ingesting insecticide. The reason is that it can cause vomiting and you don't want petroleum distillates that can be caustic having another pass through the esophagus.

Thanks - and as a semi-related aside, I know from personal experience that badly burnt toast slathered with yellow mustard will induce vomiting ... Sometimes, those "Old Wives" knew what they were talking about!

 

[Tesumph]

Some more info about the universal antidote, in case anyone is curious:
Burnt bread is not a proper substitute for activated charcoal. Activated charcoal is sourced from burning carbonaceous materials (nut shells, hulls, coal, etc) at very high temps and then screening the charcoal out. It works well for certain poisonings only because of its extremely porous nature (despite its very small mass), but even then it’s effectiveness is questionable. It is only used in specific cases and not much else, and the only practical applications I’ve seen was in EMS work and involved pumping the stomach as well (never personally seen it in veterinary medicine although I know it’s used).
That being said the universal antidote is still common medical knowledge, but it is NOT a substitute for seeing a doctor/going to the emergency room. That is more of a “stranded in the middle of nowhere and will probably die anyway” solution.
Also, I’ve been told that “wall scrapings” are a part of the old fashioned concoction too. Whether that’s drywall, paint, or something else, I don’t know. Maybe for lime or magnesia?
If you ever catch me gnawing on drywall and chugging burnt toast tea, just put me out of my misery.

anyway—so glad to hear your hen pulled through OP! And I’ve never even thought to use avocado skins as a rodent killer. Excellent idea.

 

[DiYMama540]

Oh wow...I just learned all sorts of things from this thread alone!
Thanks for sharing your knowledge friends!!

 

[Mo'sMenagerie]

Great thread and super informative! Hope OPs chickens are doing better