Please help: sick Aracuana pullet with confusing symptoms

[JoanieShrubs]

Hi, my Aracuana pullet Lady Featherflower is sick and I can’t work out what medicines to give her because her symptoms are confusing. :/

Background: She’s in a covered run with 10 others, divided into 4 prefab coops with added ventilation panels. Poop trays are inspected and cleaned every day. The girls are all under a year old, four are laying and the rest are just coming to point of lay. They eat Barastoc coarse layer mash, with a small tray of vegetable scraps daily. They were all wormed with Killverm in early January. They have pine shavings in nesting boxes and on coop floors.

This Aracuana hasn’t yet started laying. She’s been hanging out by herself, sitting down a lot, for a few days. I noticed yesterday her balance was very wobbly and she looked depressed, so brought her inside.

She has a runny nose with thick mucus (previously hidden by her facial feathers!) and she’s only picking at her fave food (she has scrambled egg in her crate.) I haven’t seen her drink. Her balance is worsening and she now has blood in her poop that wasn’t happening yesterday. Her vent and underbelly look and feel normal. Her crop is small with no lumps. We had a mite infestation a few weeks ago but it is now under control with permethrin on the coops and ivermectin drops on necks. She was vaccinated for Marek’s Disease as a chick.

The mucusy nose says coryza, the poop says coccidiosis? Could be something else of course. I don’t know which medicine to start her on. I have Sulfa-3, Amprolium, ChlorTetracycline.

Photos attached. I’ve just cut back her facial feathers and her eyes look okay, not wet or swollen. Can the kind chicken experts here please advise what you’d do for her next? Vet isn’t affordable for us as I just spent $350 on my other chicken with a different issue

 

[Wyorp Rock]

When was she last dewormed? The blood in the poop could be from worms instead of Coccidia. Hard to know unless you can get a fecal float to see what's going on.

You have Infectious Coryza in your flock correct?

Sulfa drugs are more commonly used to treat symptoms of Infectious Coryza, so if she's symptomatic then that may be the best treatment option for the respiratory symptoms.


https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/sick-hamburg-pullet-coryza-and-something-else.1561321/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/not-sure-if-i-need-a-doctor-or-a-vet.1567471/

 

[JoanieShrubs]

Hi, my Aracuana pullet Lady Featherflower is sick and I can’t work out what medicines to give her because her symptoms are confusing. :/

Background: She’s in a covered run with 10 others, divided into 4 prefab coops with added ventilation panels. Poop trays are inspected and cleaned every day. The girls are all under a year old, four are laying and the rest are just coming to point of lay. They eat Barastoc coarse layer mash, with a small tray of vegetable scraps daily. They were all wormed with Killverm in early January. They have pine shavings in nesting boxes and on coop floors.

This Aracuana hasn’t yet started laying. She’s been hanging out by herself, sitting down a lot, for a few days. I noticed yesterday her balance was very wobbly and she looked depressed, so brought her inside.

She has a runny nose with thick mucus (previously hidden by her facial feathers!) and she’s only picking at her fave food (she has scrambled egg in her crate.) I haven’t seen her drink. Her balance is worsening and she now has blood in her poop that wasn’t happening yesterday. Her vent and underbelly look and feel normal. Her crop is small with no lumps. We had a mite infestation a few weeks ago but it is now under control with permethrin on the coops and ivermectin drops on necks. She was vaccinated for Marek’s Disease as a chick.

The mucusy nose says coryza, the poop says coccidiosis? Could be something else of course. I don’t know which medicine to start her on. I have Sulfa-3, Amprolium, ChlorTetracycline.

Photos attached. I’ve just cut back her facial feathers and her eyes look okay, not wet or swollen. Can the kind chicken experts here please advise what you’d do for her next? Vet isn’t affordable for us as I just spent $350 on my other chicken with a different issue

I forgot to also mention she is panting like a dog, tongue out. Respiratory infection? Can someone please take a look @Wyorp Rock @Eggcessive @igorsMistress @casportpony if you get a moment? Please and thankyou

When was she last dewormed? The blood in the poop could be from worms instead of Coccidia. Hard to know unless you can get a fecal float to see what's going on.

You have Infectious Coryza in your flock correct?

Sulfa drugs are more commonly used to treat symptoms of Infectious Coryza, so if she's symptomatic then that may be the best treatment option for the respiratory symptoms.


https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/sick-hamburg-pullet-coryza-and-something-else.1561321/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/not-sure-if-i-need-a-doctor-or-a-vet.1567471/

They were all dewormed at Christmas but the vet i saw for my other hen said Killverm doesn’t kill the full range of worms, so I’ll get the one she recommended today and dose the whole flock.

There’s actually no (symptomatic) coryza in the flock at present, but my bantam hamburg had it late last year and it was chronic, the symptoms returning whenever she was cold or stressed; tetracycline barely helped but after a one week course of Sulfa she lost the runny nose, the head smell, it seemed to have really knocked it out, she’s had no symptoms for a couple months. She is ill again now however with an impacted crop and has an internal infection (possible eyp or salpingitis) that vet is treating with amoxycillin. I’m expecting to have to euthanise her sooner rather than later as her crop is getting larger and harder by the day and the vet refused to operate because she believes there’s an underlying reproductive disorder (she only laid for a week and then stopped.)

The Aracuana doesn’t have the stinky head or beak of coryza which is puzzling.

Sorry for the novel, hope that clarifies.

 

[igorsMistress]

@JoanieShrubs I agree you should get a fecal float test done to check for worms. I don’t see a point in worming a flock unless there are problems with worms. Also, you really should take her to the vet. If it’s coryza then she’ll need medication and even if the one bird that had it recovered she could still be a carrier and spreading disease to the rest of your flock. In that case I would get rid of the sick birds to prevent the disease from spreading.

 

[Eggcessive]

Since you have coryza in the flock, I would also recommend using the sulfa on her. The stools could be worms, coccidia, or perhaps something red in the vegetable scraps she is given. Worming can be done with 10% fenbendazole (Panacur, SafeGuard,) albendazole, or levamisole. We can give a dosage when you choose one of those.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I forgot to also mention she is panting like a dog, tongue out. Respiratory infection?

They were all dewormed at Christmas but the vet i saw for my other hen said Killverm doesn’t kill the full range of worms, so I’ll get the one she recommended today and dose the whole flock.

In the photos it looks like she's got mucous in the nostrils, so the panting may be partly due to blocked nostrils along with respiratory infection.

Hopefully you can see the vet and can get better guidance.

 

[JoanieShrubs]

@JoanieShrubs I agree you should get a fecal float test done to check for worms. I don’t see a point in worming a flock unless there are problems with worms. Also, you really should take her to the vet. If it’s coryza then she’ll need medication and even if the one bird that had it recovered she could still be a carrier and spreading disease to the rest of your flock. In that case I would get rid of the sick birds to prevent the disease from spreading.

Thanks friends for helping. We don’t have a vet that treats chickens, and i can’t afford to go back to the emergency clinic, money is extremely tight (i’m a solo parent) and the vet took everything I had saved I hear you on the risk to the flock, i had hoped the coryza in my other chicken was truly eradicated by the sulfa drug a couple months back, that’s why I let her back out with the flock after so long in the house, but i accept that she could have still been infectious without symptoms.

Sigh. Lady has started on sulfa and I’ve sourced some levamizole wormer. If I’m treating it as coryza I don’t have to avoid vitamins, correct?

If I were to tube feed fluids/meds/baby bird food, that’d be dangerous due to the blocked nose, correct?

Or, do we assume coryza (even though she has no coryza smell at all?) and therefore not treat her, euthanise instead, due to flock risk?

 

[igorsMistress]

Thanks friends for helping. We don’t have a vet that treats chickens, and i can’t afford to go back to the emergency clinic, money is extremely tight (i’m a solo parent) and the vet took everything I had saved I hear you on the risk to the flock, i had hoped the coryza in my other chicken was truly eradicated by the sulfa drug a couple months back, that’s why I let her back out with the flock after so long in the house, but i accept that she could have still been infectious without symptoms.

Sigh. Lady has started on sulfa and I’ve sourced some levamizole wormer. If I’m treating it as coryza I don’t have to avoid vitamins, correct?

If I were to tube feed fluids/meds/baby bird food, that’d be dangerous due to the blocked nose, correct?

Or, do we assume coryza (even though she has no coryza smell at all?) and therefore not treat her, euthanise instead, due to flock risk?

That’s really going to have to be your decision. Sometimes letting go is the kindest thing, but I understand not wanting to. I don’t know enough about coryza to advise on the vitamins I’m sorry.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

i had hoped the coryza in my other chicken was truly eradicated by the sulfa drug a couple months back, that’s why I let her back out with the flock after so long in the house, but i accept that she could have still been infectious without symptoms.

Lady has started on sulfa and I’ve sourced some levamizole wormer. If I’m treating it as coryza I don’t have to avoid vitamins, correct?

If I were to tube feed fluids/meds/baby bird food, that’d be dangerous due to the blocked nose, correct?

Kilverm is Levamizole.

Infectious Coryza cannot be cured or eradicated with medications, birds will remain carriers for life and can become symptomatic throughout their lifetime.

Extra vitamins can be given when treating with Levamizole and/or the sulfa antibiotic.

When tube/crop feeding, the tube is inserted into the esophagus, but if her nostrils are really blocked and she's in some respiratory distress, it will make tubing her harder.
You may need to clean her nostrils a couple of times a day to make her more comfortable.


https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/crop-feeding.75454/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...dications-to-all-poultry-and-waterfowl.73335/

 

[JoanieShrubs]

Thankyou It just doesn’t seem to fit my experience of coryza because her eyes aren’t swollen at all and there’s no smell I keep thinking it’s a very different infection :/ I defer to your much longer experience though, many years of collective learning while I’ve only had chickens a year.

The wormer i just ordered has Praziquantel and Levamisole and treats six worm types whereas the kilverm only treated three. I couldn't find the other active ingredients suggested above, they may not be available here in Aus. https://www.dineachook.com.au/avitrol-plus-bird-wormer-tablets/

The Aracuana is looking brighter today, she still can’t move her legs so i’m speaking relative to yesterday, but i think the sulfa has helped her feel more comfortable and reduce inflammation. I cleaned her nose and tubed her some warm water and electrolytes just now and it was quick and easy.


I don’t expect her to pull through this tbh but will try until she gives up.