On the mend, but still questions: UPDATE, 20 week old banty wormy as heck,

[Leahs Mom]

RE: Curled Toes & Riboflavin Deficiency

Quote: http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/pou...vitamin_deficiencies_in_poultry.html#v3348007




Quote: https://sites.google.com/a/poultrypedia.com/poultrypedia/poultry-podiatry

• Caused by Riboflavin (Vitamin B2) deficiency.
  • If caused by chick diet (feed that is out-of-date, formulated poorly, or not formulated specifically for chicks), toes start curling within 1-2 weeks.
  • If caused by diet of mother hen (such as solely Layer Feed--without access to Riboflavin-rich foods such as certain greens, etc.), toes start curling within a couple days of birth.

• IMMEDIATELY increase Riboflavin in chick's diet. Give supplement or multi-vitamin drink with high Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), or Riboflavin-rich foods

Quote: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/riboflavin

This is one of the reasons I feed liver and other organ meats if I have them.



ETA: Somehow this post got something in it that wasn't supposed to be there. Editing to fix.

 

[lalaland]

vitamin deficiency was a problem for this pullet last may when she was just a chick. I wonder why her system isn't able to absorb it or utilize it? She has had the electrolytes, and baby vitamins, I am thinking that should have been sufficient. Hasn't been willing to eat enough of liver or yogurt or milk or egg to get it from there.

thank you Sue for the info.

too dark to wake her yet.
morning, everyone!

 

[lalaland]

here's todays update:

she lost weight, is back to 1.26 before eating or drinking
drank, ate mealworms and a few groats
ate all the clover I brought in, about 1/8 cup of leaves.

no sign of curled toes this morning.

I made a pasty gruel of grower mash, mealworms, garlic, vitamins, yogurt and wrapped her in a towel. first gave her a chance to take some from my finger, then opened her beak and put a glob in first part of beak. she would swallow, and would actually pick up globs that fell out on the towel. I continued this, giving her time to rest in between, until she started to suddenly struggle and I thought she might vomit. she closed her eyes and I left her wrapped in the towel resting.

after a few minutes, she seemed more alert. I checked her crop, it was full and sloshy, not firm., I put her in a new wire cage which is by french doors leading ot hte porch, so lots of natural light and not so dim as the dog kennel she has been in. She drank a ton, and then sank down. I covered the crate to give her some peace and quiet, and a half hour later she was raking food in her dish - not really eating as much as digging through it (mixture of mealworms, groats, crumble).

I am home today and tomorrow, will keep up the gruel paste feeding.

I am promising her and myself that Wed is the day she will be culled if she hasn't gained

 

[Leahs Mom]

vitamin deficiency was a problem for this pullet last may when she was just a chick. I wonder why her system isn't able to absorb it or utilize it? She has had the electrolytes, and baby vitamins, I am thinking that should have been sufficient. Hasn't been willing to eat enough of liver or yogurt or milk or egg to get it from there.

thank you Sue for the info.

too dark to wake her yet.
morning, everyone!

Since the corid has the thiamin blocker that is important too.

Quote: Even though the weight is down it sounds like she is still more alert and doing better than before from your description! That's at least a good sign

 

[lalaland]

11/10 sunday eve update: weighed in at 1.33, and then when I went to feed her more gruel, wrapped up in a towel, she grabbed the glob off my finger. ate a couple big globs, again suddenly struggled like she was going to upchuck, settled down, ate a bit and closed her eyes.

I did not have to force her to eat!

however, she is sitting on her hocks with curled toes.

I hate when I am reading a thread about someone's ill chicken when you never find out what happened... but this is getting pretty long. almost 3 weeks.

If I had to do it over again, I would choose to cull her when she couldn't make it back to the coop up the ramp. this far into it, I have to question whether this has been the best I could do for her, and whether she is suffering.

not worms, not cocci, so what ever was wrong is still wrong. I've noticed she sits a lot with her head and neck retracted in. I read somewhere that is a sign of a kind of cancer. will do some more reading.

 

[casportpony]

I've seen Marek's present this way, I call it hock sitting Marek's and curly tow Marek's.

-Kathy

 

[Leahs Mom]

I'm glad you're updating. I wait every day to hear the progress and outcome.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Lala - I know I've posted this elsewhere, but often things get diagnosed as mareks that aren't. Here is an excerpt from one of Joel Salatins books that I found fascinating. This was the first time I had heard about the nutritional issues - when I read his book. Note, if you read all the way to the end, they tried to tell him it was Mareks too - and his experience and conclusions with that.

I think if you click on the images they will come up large enough to read.

Quote:
Pastured Poultry Profits
Author: Joel Salatin
Chapter 26 In It's Entirety
For Educational Purposes Only. No copyright infringement intended










Someone once remarked how they wondered how the birds could be fine one day and not able to walk the next. In another part of JS book, he mentioned that was what happened. One day they were in that condition. After feeding the liver, they recovered quite quickly as well. These were pretty young chicks.

 

[lalaland]

I did some serious reading on mareks - wow, my heart just stopped when I read your post, Kathy.

Not sure that it makes sense here because she is on day, what, 20 or something. and everyone else (11 agemates, 9 older hens) is fine.

I will make a beef liver concoction for Mrs Murphy tomorrow. I can use the gruel paste, add some brewers yeast, beef liver....should be a potent mix. She has been getting regular vitamins, though, so I am back to the why isn't she able to make use of them question.

I was checking her skin tonight, and going thru her feathers, and found a little tiny tan round ball stuck to a feather. not at the shaft but halfway up. I could not pull it off no matter what. I thought lice egg, but couldn't find another one after thorough searching.

Here she is tonight, she looks like she feels awful. The globs of food in front of her give you an idea of how much she ate, she ate 4 of those globs. And see how her head/neck is kind of retracted?

 

[Leahs Mom]

Any time one of my kiddos isn't feeling well they retract their neck back like that. No matter what the problem is. When my one had a bumblefoot infection she sat down on the floor and puffed up and retracted. That is the one that I worked on last winter. Sometimes they do that when they're molting and just feel lousy too.