Hi
Thanks for your support and interest.
She had lain quiet all day and I gently syringed liquids into her little and often but sadly at about 6pm, she had some sort of spasm or seizure and after shrieking and flapping her wings, she died. Really wish I had put her down earlier and it was sheer cowardice and lack of moral fibre on my part that I didn't, because I knew it would take a miracle for her to recover from the state she was in. Hopefully I will learn from this experience and do better next time.
Will try to do a Post Mortem today and report what I find and I will be going to the feed store on Tues to see what can be bought to treat the others for lice and worming options.
Many thanks again for seeing me through this really difficult time. I so very much appreciate it.
Regards
Barbara
Sorry to hear that.
She sounded like she'd reached the end stage in the post you made before the one I've quoted, so it's not a surprise but still a shame.
I hope the post mortem reveals a cause beyond doubt, but if not, especially with the others looking unwell, I would consider sending her in for tests for disease and toxicity. Possible fallout from that is if they do find something extremely bad and order you to cull the lot.
I would probably get a water test too. It's sounding fairly serious, so if the others show symptoms you'll need to act fast, but you can't do that when you don't know what you're up against. I hope it's just an isolated incident but of course whatever we hope it is, we should try to be prepared for it being worse.
The spasm you noted sounds like a normal part of death for most animals, they flex and sometimes contract with a lot of force when they've died, though they often seem alive afterwards, it's just the nervous system doing its thing, not a conscious action of the animal itself. As in, it usually happens as a result of their death, not before it, even though there may be some occasional breaths and heatbeats after the death. The same thing happens to animals killed with bullets to the brain, the whole body tends to arch and flex even though it's obviously truly dead by that point.
If you're not sure about whether they've been wormed correctly it can help to do that even in the latter stages but sometimes won't help. Once things get too far it's sometimes irretrievable.
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The great thing is that it doesn't take time to build that understanding. It's instantaneous, the majority of animals are able to perceive friend or foe immediately, just by the actions of the other, they don't need time to build trust. It is given as soon as you show them you're not an enemy. That's just instinct, or a life skill, for them. I think subhanalah gave a great example of this. It's more common than not in my experience that an animal, even wild, will understand immediately that you are there to help.
I've dealt with many wild animals over the years, plenty of whom I seized from the wild, (often in less than the most gentle way due to necessity) to treat for an injury or parasite infestation or illness, and then released, and none of them had any problems comprehending immediately that I was intending to help them, not kill them; they settled down, cooperated, showed either no fear or little of it, and peacefully went their way when I released them. They tolerated rehabilitation involving cages, physical restraints, forcefeeding, etc, without complaint or struggle. Most of them even went out of their way and did some rather unnatural things to show appreciation for the help. Some came back for a visit once released. There was one little bird, rescued from a near drowned state and brought back to health and then released, who brought its whole family back to sing on the windowsill, something they'd never done before and never did again. There are also proven examples of wild animals helping other wild animals of different species, or helping humans to help others, just things that aren't explainable by ethology or our current perception of animal intelligence. Chickens have been found in scientific studies to be one of the domestic animals quickest to understand compassion and demonstrate it towards others, too. They don't necessarily comprehend the bizarre things we do to help but they comprehend the intent and that is enough. They trust the intent.
None of the feral or wild animals I've treated had time to build a bond of trust, they weren't tame either, plenty of them also had negative previous experiences with humans, but it didn't matter. They could even understand and respond to affection, took easily to handfeeding, cooperated deliberately with sometimes agonizing wound treatment, etc, it didn't need to be trained into them, they didn't need previous experience. Understanding the intent of other animals around them, us included, is something almost all of them do, easily; it comes natural.
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Regarding DE, I've never had a problem with worms or lice, and I always used DE and other natural things as parasite preventative and treatment; whether DE works or not apparently has everything to do with the grade of DE used, as many people don't use the right one and therefore don't get results from it.
I wanted to be sure, as I also doubted it initially, but whenever we butchered or did post mortems there were no worms. Never a single one. I personally inspected all the organs and interior of the intestines too, even when I wasn't the one doing the culls, just to maintain an understanding of how the animals I was breeding and feeding and rearing were coming along.
Whenever I brought in new stock, as a rule it seems they were wormy animals, and I simply put them onto the diet mine were on, and they expelled dead adult worms and never had a problem again. I've been skeptical about every single treatment I've used and have only decided they work after extensive tests over the years, lol. Often I didn't understand how it could work so I dismissed it out of hand, without testing it, until later finding the research to back it up. These days I test it myself, and not once or twice but many times under every different controlling circumstance, variable and criteria I can think of which is feasible for me to implement.
Regarding corn, I wouldn't trust today's modern strains to do anything more than give a sugar boost or even cancer to animals raised solely on them. Heritage breeds, or heirloom breeds, are the ones I was referring to, and they were known for being a superfood (to use a modern term in an ancient context) which could keep many sorts of species alive for prolonged periods in the absence of other feeds.
I'm not surprised your cockerel wasn't doing well on what he was raised on, modern corn is abysmally deficient as a nutrient source. I can't stomach it anymore, but I used to love corn.
Best wishes to all.
