Severly underweight - please help! Cocci / diarrhea

[ChickenMama308]

It's been quite a journey with Nani (2 years old rhode island red hen) - it's been about 2.5 weeks of lethargy, no-low appetite, sleepiness, etc. Her poops looked normal in the beginning so I didn't believe it was coccidiosis (I now know that blood doesn't always show in this case) but I wanted to be safe so I started spiking the water with corid (I believe now that she would stray from that water source and found a new one, however) - I looked through her feathers and she had lice, so I gave her a good bath with dish soap and blow dried her - no more lice! She didn't seem to get better otherwise in the next day or two so I kept her on the back porch and that's when I started noticing she did in fact start to have blood in the poop. I doubled the corid in the water (= 1/2 TBS per quart water) but it still seemed not much improvement even after giving her this diluted corid water solution via syringe and yogurt - so I did 3 days of undiluted corid treatments to her orally via syringe (I believe it was 3 ccs per day as she was 3 pounds) and she did seem to have more energy to her (not conking off to sleep consistently), though she's had diarrhea since. She's lost a lot of weight - she's about half her body weight now - around 2.2 pounds I gave her a .5cc valbazen treatment yesterday to treat for worms which I've heard since may not have been the best timing as her body is already stressed - she had been eating a bit of rice yesterday which is good but her crop felt pretty stiff this morning. Her poop has been whitish with some yellow and some green today. I have an experienced Chicken keeper in my neighborhood helping me with advice but I just wanted to put this post out there to this community in order to possibly get a bit more perspective. I started giving her water treated with antibiotic pills (the name of the pill starts with an O - supposedly it's illegal now) and just began that treatment today. Please let me know if you have any experience with a similar journey or have anything to add in - those that can speak from experience is most ideal. Thank you!

Here has been her undoubtable sequence of events in a nutshell:

- lice
- cocci
- diarrhea

Here has been her treatment in a nutshell:

- bath
- corid
- valbazen
- 'illegal' antibiotic that starts with an 'O'

I was also putting garlic juice and apple cider vinegar in her water. I gave her nutridrench in the beginning but heard it could nullify the corid so I stopped doing so. I tried to get her to drink electrolyte water I made this morning (with sugar, salt, and baking soda) but she didn't like it and won't drink it on her own.

I'm wondering if it's time to start force feeding her again as she's not really eating today most likely will - and will put her organic layer feed in the blender, add water til it's baby food consistency, put in a big syringe and feed her.

I've since trimmed her 'butt feathers' as well so she can stay a bit more hygienic.

I love her and care about her very much and am doing my best - please let me know what you think.

 

[NoFlyBackFarm]

@Crazy for Chickens!

 

[Saaniya]

Have u deworm them?

 

[micstrachan]

Hi there. Sorry about your girl. She looks like she doesn’t feel well. I was going to suggest tube feeding, but I noticed in the third photo her crop may be distended. Can you check that it is empty in the morning? I just went back and reread that her crop was stiff in the morning. @casportpony usually advises tube feeding once they’ve lost a certain amount of weight. 5%, I think. I think you need to deal with the crop first. She may be starving due to an impacted crop. I would give her plenty of fluids and massage it gently several times each day. You can also freeze coconut oil and feed her little chunks to help get things loosened up and moving.

What are you treating with the antibiotics?

On a side note, the lice will probably return without something to kill them off like permethrin or spinosad.

Finally, is her comb always flopped over like that? If not, I think she could be dehydrated.

Best of luck and please keep us posted.

 

[ChickenMama308]

Have u deworm them?

I just gave her a treatment of valbazen to de-worm yesterday.

 

[Saaniya]

I just gave her a treatment of valbazen to de-worm yesterday.

She still.having bloody poop can u post some pics of her poop.
necrotic enteritis possible
Symptoms Include Diarrhea
Loss of appetite
Dark, often blood-stained feces
Foul odor Depression Reluctance to move Sudden death Huddling

Treatment possible with Board Spectrum Antibiotics & Bacteriacite
Bacitracin, lincomycin, neomycin, penicillin, tetracycline, trimethoprim-sulfadiazine,

 

[ChickenMama308]

Hi there. Sorry about your girl. She looks like she doesn’t feel well. I was going to suggest tube feeding, but I noticed in the third photo her crop may be distended. Can you check that it is empty in the morning? I just went back and reread that her crop was stiff in the morning. @casportpony usually advises tube feeding once they’ve lost a certain amount of weight. 5%, I think. I think you need to deal with the crop first. She may be starving due to an impacted crop. I would give her plenty of fluids and massage it gently several times each day. You can also freeze coconut oil and feed her little chunks to help get things loosened up and moving.

What are you treating with the antibiotics?

On a side note, the lice will probably return without something to kill them off like permethrin or spinosad.

Finally, is her comb always flopped over like that? If not, I think she could be dehydrated.

Best of luck and please keep us posted.

Thank you so much for your response!

I will check her crop again in the morning, but this morning it did feel very stiff, not empty but not full, and by the end of the day it felt more normal and softish. I did massage her crop multiple times today <3 A couple days ago I was worried it was a crop issue, but her breath doesn't smell and a few days ago her crop felt completely empty. I've never heard of a distended crop, how do you treat a distended crop if it is in fact one? Again, I will confirm how the crop feels in the morning.

When you say 5% for tube feeding, what exactly does that mean? How do you recommend doing a tube feeding - how far down do you put the tube? I do have a large syringe with a tube I just bought. I was considering blending her feed so it's fine and adding water for a mash to force feed via syringe, but I heard the dangers of it going down the wrong tube into the lungs so I'd rather not if not necessary. She scratched around for bugs this morning, then didn't eat anything all day, and ate a small bit of papaya and spinach this eve. The guy who has been helping me said it may not be necessary to force feed if she is eating, though I am still very eager to start putting weight back on her. She seemed more week/sleepy today than yesterday, I believe because I treated her for worms with valbazen the day before. The past couple days she's had a good amount of diarrhea, she only had a handful of poops today and the first few were somewhat concerning - all white with some yellow. Hopefully that's because of the de-wormer. but toward the evening she had normal looking poops! Smaller than usual of course, but it felt very positive thankfully. The guy who has been helping / advising me said the antibiotics are to treat the diarrhea.. I'd much rather not use antibiotics with her but I've been feeling nervous and just want to get her on track again asap and was hopeful this would help her diarrhea at least. I wonder if I could stop the antibiotic treatment at this point? He said to have her take it for 5 days total. I can't remember what it's called but supposedly the name starts with an 'O' and this type of diarrhea medicine has been banned by the FDA. I'll try that with the frozen coconut oil as well!! Yes, her comb is flopped because she's been very dehydrated with her diarrhea unfortunately.

When you say the lice will return, do you mean from the outside environment or on her? I'm curious how to treat all the chickens here for lice, I know some of them have it now, the thing is we have a good amount of wild chickens as well that I cannot pick up as they scurry away quickly. Don't want to spray permethrin as I've heard it kills the bees.. what to do?!

Long post - but here's what I'll aim to do tomorrow:

- double-check what her poops look like from the night
- feel if her crop is empty
- massage crop
- see if she will eat
- consider whether to 'force feed' via tube or oral syringe
- consider whether to continue antibiotic treatment or not
- consider whether to supplement water with apple cider vinegar
- consider whether to give her some nutria-drench for extra vitamins etc.
- double-check for lice (her bath for lice was over 10 days ago)
- check in again with backyardchickens.com!

Thank you again so much for taking the time to add some perspective, it is very much appreciated!!!

 

[ChickenMama308]

She still.having bloody poop can u post some pics of her poop.
necrotic enteritis possible
Symptoms Include Diarrhea
Loss of appetite
Dark, often blood-stained feces
Foul odor Depression Reluctance to move Sudden death Huddling

Treatment possible with Board Spectrum Antibiotics & Bacteriacite
Bacitracin, lincomycin, neomycin, penicillin, tetracycline, trimethoprim-sulfadiazine,

1.) The first clearish poop was the first poo photo I took from her during this whole ordeal, on October 8th.

2.) The photo of 4 poops with blood was when I realized she had cocci and started corid treatment, October 9th.

In this period of time I gave her corid water for at least 5 days but didn't see much improvement, then did 3 days of oral syringe corid treatment, saw some improvement over next few days but diarrhea and another pound of weight was lost...

3 & 4.) The next two poo photos was Oct 22nd morning .

5 & 6.) This next poo was the afternoon after the morning I gave her .5cc valbazen de-wormer treatment.. hoping those are worms and not intestinal lining or something (anyone know?!) It did seem somewhat stringy, it was the color and look of it that worried me. October 22nd afternoon .

7.) This next poo was today mid day (October 23)... really don't like that color. Hoping this has something to do with the de-worming treatment yesterday. She thankfully had normal non diarrhea poops today in the late afternoon but I didn't take photos, will document tomorrow where she is at.


Any thoughts from anyone are appreciated, thank you!

 

[ChickenMama308]

Ok everyone... her crop was the size of a plum early this morning before she had anything to eat. Not as firm as yesterday but it definitely doesn’t seem to be emptying - so it seems she has an impacted crop.

She weighs 2.11 lbs right now... which is less than half her original body weight. How do I go about emptying her crop safely when she is so underweight? Should I not feed her til it’s emptied?

 

[micstrachan]

I’m sorry not to be of more help. Now I’m not even totally confident in the oil method. I will tell you this, I have a girl with a crop that isn’t emptying and I just ordered some acidified copper sulfate to treat her. I think you should look into that.