Need opinion ASAP please

[schnebbles]

Short story because in a time crunch - my 5 month old bantam cochin has developed very weak left leg, took to vet yesterday, he gave me steroids and clavamox antibiotic. He wasn't sure what was wrong, couldn't see anything so it's probably neurological.

Gave her dose of each last night.

Overnight, she became much worse and was pretty much laying on her side, I had heard her thumping in the crate. She can't sit up.

I called vet (1 hour away) and he said of course, not good sign, but obviously the meds have not had time to work.

Do I put her down, or keep her on the meds til Monday? It's 11 where I am and vets will be closing if I need to get her in to put down.

I have her wrapped in a towel holding her now so I can keep her upright.

Please tell me what you would do.

she can't even hold her head up the way she has to sit/lay. She can if I have her in the towel.

 

[lucyboo]

everything in me wants to say wait until mon but honestly I don't know if she would make it. if she looks like she is in pain then take her in and have her put down. I have had to take 2 of my pet hens to be put down and its hard but the right thing to do in some situations. best of luck to you in whatever you decide. give her lots of love

<3 kelsey

 

[schnebbles]

Well, my time crunch pretty much made my decision to wait. There was no way I could have gotten her in by noon. She does not appear to be in pain at all, but not sure how I'd know?

She is having neck trouble I think. I see her just let her neck fall, like into food & stuff. I usually give them wet crumbles because they love that, but I didn't want her plunging into that and getting it in her nose so she just has dry. I also took water out for same reason. I'll give it to her in a dropper . She is sitting up a bit better now, I gave her another dose of steroids and antibiotics. I'm going to do an extra steroid dose this evening. I don't think it's going to hurt and my experience with them is to start out rather heavy. She weighs 1.3# and they said 1/4 of a 5mg tab 1x a day for 3 days then every other day. I'm going to do 2 doses today. I know they take time to work from personal, recent experience for poison ivy.

What I didn't want to happen was for me to wish I had taken her in and her get bad and me have to watch her suffer. I guess though, since she doesn't appear to be hurting, hopefully the meds work. She couldn't even take a mealworm. I'll try again later, fortunately I have plenty. my mealworms are doing pretty good because I have tons of beetles.

her poos are stinky! vet checked a sample and it was ok. it's runny but he said stress can cause that so he wasn't real worried about that. I have to keep rinsing her vent because where she isn't standing, it's just getting all stuck on her. I hope I can get her to eat.


I keep reading mareks is a little rare, so I bet that is not what she has.

 

[Eggcessive]

I would go out right now and get some vitamins for her. PolyVisol (no iron) baby vitamins 1-2 drops a day by mouth or chick vitamins to put in the water would be good. Many leg and neck problems are vitamin deficiencies. This is not to say that it is not Maraks or another disease, but this is something that you can do right away that won't hurt, but may really help. Here is a link to a good site for leg issues: https://sites.google.com/a/poultrypedia.com/poultrypedia/poultry-podiatry

 

[schnebbles]

I use the Durvet vitamins/electrolytes always. But, I've been wondering how I could get extra vitamins, I'll get some of that. I keep reading vitamin B. Do you think the polyvisol is better than the durvet? I always have that in their drinking water, and a little ACV as well.

just an afterthought, she can flap her wings, so I believe they are ok.

 

[dawg53]

I dont know why the vet would prescribe clavamox unless he suspects a bacterial infection such as ecoli. If I were you, I'd follow the vets directions and not give her extra steroids. A chickens system is not the same as humans, they metabolize things much quicker and in this case, more is not better.

 

[schnebbles]

I think he gave that just in case - he wondered about mold. I said I didn't think so. And, ok, I won't do extra steroids. Thank you for saying that.