Peahen with Blackhead or some other illness?????

[ruth]

I have a peahen, about a year and half old, that is sick. For two days she mostly sat around hunched up. I only saw her eat a few bites of dog food yesterday (normally their favorite food). All day today (the third day) she has been on a roost and not come down so I don't think she's eaten or drank anything today. I was able to catch her yesterday and put 1cc of blue Ivermectin (5% pour-on) on her back and I put her in the tack room with a heater. Our weather went from a week of 20 degrees to high 70s and back down to 30 - over the past two weeks. I checked her droppings, under the roost tonight and they are white, watery with black spots (not yellow). I'm afraid she may have Blackhead disease. Is there something else I can give her and what and how much? Our vet should be in town tomorrow and I can hopefully get whatever she needs. In the meantime, should I force feed her something tonight or tomorrow?

My opal male was acting like this the day before she started but then he suddenly started walking around and eating and seems to be o.k. but he did spend an entire day sitting around hunched up.

It's been several months since they last received any worm treatments and they freerange and are almost impossible to catch and they sleep high in the trees.

If she's sick, should I do something for all of them?

 

[toejam]

Do you have turkeys? That is how blackhead is "shared".

 

[DMFarm]

Ruth
If she has blackhead you will need to give her metronidazole I would give her 250mg for two days. She could just have worms. If you could get a stool sample to the vet he could tell you if it worms or something else. Earthworms are one of the biggest carrier of the heterakid worm that causes blackhead and can also get blackhead from eating the dropping from infected birds.
Doug

 

[ruth]

No, I don't have turkeys but I have lots of chickens (200+), ducks, geese, gunieas - and goats and they all freerange and get in each others space.

I did force feed her a bit of wet cat food tonight. She's passing mostly clear, mucosy liquid (almost looks like egg whites) but then again, I don't think she's eaten anything in three days except for the few bites of dog kibble yesterday.

I don't see/hear any other symptoms except maybe a little bit of breathing but then she's not too happy with being handled since they are basically wild. I just don't really know what to do.

 

[chickenzoo]

Black head is carried often by some chickens. It does not seem to affect the chickens so it can be impossible to know if their are ones carring it. It can be passed to turkey, peafowl etc. when they ingest infected chicken droppings. Typically when my turkey get Blackhead they will stop eating, get depressed, have a dark color about the face and get a very bright yellow poo. Treatment I use is the med stated above which can be found as Fishzole, a fish med that i get at Jeffers pet supply online. Two 250mg Tabs a day for an adult turkey for 5 days. Not sure how much your peafowl weigh. But it seems like worms might be your problem, since there is no bright yellow poo. I typically dose everyone( peafowl, chickens, turkey, pheasants, all critters) with Safeguard goat wormer. Fenabenazole is known to affect the cecal worm that contributes to black head, aswell as it being a good all around wormer. I rotate between that and other wormers yearly. Since you have dosed with ivomec, i would give supportive care, keep up the feeding and vitamin water, keep her warm..... until you can see an improvement. If no improvement or she gets worse it may be helpful to dose her with the Fishzole, I always keep it on hand, but note the ivomec might bring her down before she gets better as the parasite load dieing may weaken her some more. Best wishes

 

[Choctaw Valley Farm]

I would take her off the dog food,corn. anything else like that and put her on chick starter 28% medicated this should give her a boost and help her out, I would do this for a few days and see if this helps any, I know some folks will say not to do this but it has helped us in the past. I would also get a small (insulin) syringe and do 1cc safe guard to 1cc water and put it down her throat to the side so not to drown her.

(If she is as sick as you say Ivomec is pretty strong and may do more harm then good)

GOOD LUCK
Steve

 

[NateinFL]

I'm fairly new to peafowl husbandry but this is what worked for me...

My peahen became gravely ill this past fall, shortly after me getting her. On top of the medicine, I kept her nourished by using a syringe and force-feeding her parrot handfeeding formula, I mixed in her meds with that. The baby bird formula is full of nurtrients that birds need, and I made her eat 3 times daily. I also had her in a BIG dog kennel with a heat lamp over her, and let her out in the afternoons for fresh air. My male was very gentle with her and made baby noises around her. Hope this helps others. -Nathan

 

[ruth]

As an update, the peahen seems to be doing much better this morning. Last night I had DH help hold her and I force fed her some scrambled egg earlier in the day and some catfood/shredded cheese/raw egg yolk that evening as well as used a syringe to put some water mixed with vitamins down her throat. She immediately began walking around the tack room, where she's been confined and walked with the peacock strut they normally do instead of the hunched up barely moving. She also would walk over to food on the ground and look at it and act like she was going to eat it but didn't. This morning she was even better, strutting around and did NOT want to be handled but just to be sure she was getting nutrients I force fed her some cat food and again put water down her throat. Now she's walking around and acting "normal" and pooping normal poops. I'm going to leave her in the tack room with the heater for a few more days. She seems to have a bit of a respiratory thing going on. I see a tiny bit of mucos in her throat, not much, and she sounds a little stuffy.

One other thing - I did notice that the first night, after applying the Ivermax that the next morning there were a lot of her feathers on the floor - you can see some in this pic. Does that stuff make their feathers fall out?

Here's a pic: