Neglected baby help

[Hufflepuffin]

I don't really know where to start so I'm just going to give as much information about my baby girl as possible and we can see what we can do for her. This is a long read, buckle in.

I have a chick who is maybe 6wks and the person we got her from, told us she is a lavender orpington. We named her Bubbles. In the first week, her and 3 other baby girls were showing signs of coccidiosis : bloody stool and lethargy. We reached out to the man, but he said nothing. Immediately, we started them on medicated feed and Corid. There was an improvement with all of the girls. After 5 days we took them off and put them back on normal food and water. He lied to us about them being vaccinated and many other things we came to find out.

Fast forward to this past week, Bubbles continued to be lethargic. She ate and drank but still slept way more than anything. She wouldn’t gain any weight and her feathers still weren’t filling out. This past Wednesday, July 8th, I noticed her crop was super swollen and medium hard. I feared impacted crop, and did some research. Many things turned up that it might be sour crop. Being a first time chicken mom, the thought of vomiting her was completely out of my comfort range. She may have already aspirated. We now think she has an upper respiratory infection. She coughs maybe a few times in a 30 minute period. She gets gruggle-y when she gets worked up but she breathes fine when she is calm.

We started her on some tylan, but it is the kind you mix in the water. I am giving her .5ml to 1ml every 2 hours or so for the past week. When her crop empties out a bit I give her scramble egg and plain greek yogurt. She is so weak from the impacted crop that I’m just doing my best to keep her living. I don’t know how to treat both or which one is more important. It’s now the 14th of July and I haven’t seen too much improvement but she hasn’t gotten any worse either.

I love this little girl so much. After coming to live with us, all 4 girls we got were very clearly in an abusive situation. So now I just want them all to live very happy long lives.

My questions are:
What more can I do to help my little girl?
How long does it take for a baby chick to get over pneumonia?
I think I may just need some encouragement. I appreciate this community and the input you all have. Thank you for reading.

 

[azygous]

Coincidentally, I am treating one of my own chicks for sour crop and impacted gizzard, and it sounds as if your chick may have similar issues.

The symptoms of sour crop are regurgitation of yellow sour liquid, especially when the chick is handled. Another symptom is loss of appetite in spite of a very full and squishy crop. The chick will also make contorted neck gyrations. Also you may hear gurgling sounds when you handle the chick which can make her cough if any drips into the airway.

If there's an impaction anywhere along the digestive tract, these are the symptoms:

-no poop, including cecal poop, just a white chalky emission in place of poop
-"peeing" fluids in large amounts as fluids cannot be absorbed in the cecum and are lost as they move through the digestive tract quickly.
-thirst
-lethargy
-wings held away from the body and head hunched into the shoulders.


The cause of my chicks woes was her inability, even at ten weeks, to process fibrous chard and kale stems. The material managed to move out of the crop, but got hung up in her gizzard, causing the crop not to empty. That brought on a yeast infection as the contents in the crop fermented.

I've been very aggressive with treatment for both the sour crop and impacted gizzard at the same time. I'm using miconazole along with Medistatin for the yeast infection and molasses, stool softener and coconut oil for the impacted gizzard. Usually, one fourth cup of molasses water with one stool softener capsule and a couple teaspoons of coconut oil will work the magic, but I found it necessary to repeat this round twice in two days.

I was all but certain of losing this chick, she was so far gone last night, but this morning her yeast infection was under control and she began producing poop again, including a cecal. She will need to be on the yeast meds for a full week, but I believe she's finally on the mend.

Hope this helps.

 

[Granny Hatchet]

@azygous are you supposed to use medicated feed with corid ?

 

[azygous]

Using medicated feed with Corid is redundant. It's of no real value. Medicated feed has a very low dose of amprolium meant only to help chicks develope resistance to coccidia.

 

[Granny Hatchet]

Thanks !