Penny Marshall my 1 year old Wyandotte Hen having issues... again..

[mrskenmore]

Hi All,

Penny is hanging with me in the back bedroom of the house. She ate 1/3 cup of layer pellets today was standing and stretching. I gave her a tablet of b-complex and 1 capsule of vitamin e this morning. She also had a half of a sardine. She is drinking and pooping normally as always.

I have a call into her vet and I also tested the house water (where we fill up the coop water from) and it is NEGATIVE for Zinc!

There is a yard hydrant that we use for them in the warmer months that I will still need to check when I can turn on the water and test it in the warmer weather this weekend. They get water from this source about 7 months out of the year. Hopefully that will test negative as well.

Will continue to keep you all posted of the updates as Penny and I vacation together!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

How is Penny Marshall doing?

 

[mrskenmore]

How is Penny Marshall doing?

Merry Christmas!

She is doing okay, the vitamins seem to have perked her up and I am keeping her on a regular feeding schedule of her layer feed and scratch and peck feed which she also likes.

Doing this seems to have increased her appetite and drinking which is good.

We have a vet appointment Wednesday afternoon and I am hoping the vet will give me a call before then so we can discuss her getting the chelation therapy if needed.

Penny's spirit is amazing- she continues to impress me.

Thank you for checking in on her and will keep you all posted!

 

[mrskenmore]

Hi all,

Penny just visited the vet, we took blood and fecal tests and should know more in a few days.

All of her vitals were good. Abdomen checked out as did her lungs, mouth and eyes.

She is 4.9 lbs, down from 5.4 in the end of May.

We clipped her toenails and the vitamins have helped perk her up and increase her appetite.

Will keep you all posted once we have the test results back.

 

[mrskenmore]

Penny is doing well, still having issues standing and walking but I would say she is slightly improving since last week.

Today we enjoyed some vitamin D while we await her test results.

Happy New Year!

 

[mrskenmore]

Hi all,

Update:

Vet just called and all of Penny's blood work is normal. No elevated zinc, fecal was normal as well as the red blood cells. I will post the two pdfs of the blood work from May and now December tomorrow. Her only other thought was mareks. I told her that I was going to try some nutridrench and poultry cel to see if she improves. I asked her if Penny was suffering and she said she does not appear to be. She is also surrounded by eight flockmates all of which were also vaccinated just like she was. I just don't think it's mareks but I want to be realistic too. Please let me know your thoughts as my next plan is to continue to get her stronger with vitamins and sitting in the sun. I guess I can reasses in a few weeks based on how that goes.
Thanks for listening

 

[azygous]

Excellent! It's a very big thing to have the peace of mind knowing she isn't loaded up with zinc. And if it is Marek's, since she's been vaccinated, she has a better chance of living with it since the vaccine prevent tumors. B-complex can help, and also you might try Valtrex (acyclovir) to alleviate the worst of her symptoms if it is Marek's.

Valtrex is a human prescription med that treats herpes virus lesions. I take it for shingles outbreaks. Since Marek's is caused by a strain of the herpes virus, Valtrex may help. We don't know. It hasn't really been discussed much here on BYC the connection between avian herpes and human herpes and reported experimenting with an anti-viral herpes med.

The problem is getting a prescription. If you ever suffer from cold sores, you could ask your doctor to prescribe it for you. Yes, I know this amounts to subterfuge. I like to call it "ingenuity". When I experimented on some pullets some years back, when I suspected Marek's, I broke one pill into quarters and gave a quarter pill per day. This is all the literature I could find on this. https://poultrydvm.com/drugs/acyclovir

I can't really say if it had any effect on my pullets. They were later diagnosed with lymphoid leucosis which is caused by an entirely different virus.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'm glad you got the tests back, good news is that it's normal!

I think you are on the right track working on building her up with vitamin therapy and nutrition and see how it goes. I'm a big fan of giving B-Complex as @azygous mentioned.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Following. (Sort of like lurking, but with the intention of learning!) Hoping for the best. Miss Penny is a beautiful example of a BLRW!

 

[mrskenmore]

Excellent! It's a very big thing to have the peace of mind knowing she isn't loaded up with zinc. And if it is Marek's, since she's been vaccinated, she has a better chance of living with it since the vaccine prevent tumors. B-complex can help, and also you might try Valtrex (acyclovir) to alleviate the worst of her symptoms if it is Marek's.

Valtrex is a human prescription med that treats herpes virus lesions. I take it for shingles outbreaks. Since Marek's is caused by a strain of the herpes virus, Valtrex may help. We don't know. It hasn't really been discussed much here on BYC the connection between avian herpes and human herpes and reported experimenting with an anti-viral herpes med.

The problem is getting a prescription. If you ever suffer from cold sores, you could ask your doctor to prescribe it for you. Yes, I know this amounts to subterfuge. I like to call it "ingenuity". When I experimented on some pullets some years back, when I suspected Marek's, I broke one pill into quarters and gave a quarter pill per day. This is all the literature I could find on this. https://poultrydvm.com/drugs/acyclovir

I can't really say if it had any effect on my pullets. They were later diagnosed with lymphoid leucosis which is caused by an entirely different virus.

Very, very interesting stuff here- thank you for that. I too used to suffer from cold sores and took a generic for Valtrex. I don't have any on hand but in some quick internet research I came across st. Johns wort in liquid form. Any thoughts on administering that to Penny? Also she is currently getting half a tablet of b complex daily along with half a sardine for absorption. Should I give her a full b complex daily? I will post a video of her today so you can see how she is doing since last time.

Thanks all!