Sick Bantam rooster

[rapidswimmer]

Hello all,
I just joined this blog so I guess this will be my introduction as well as my first question. We have have had many "big" chickens through the years and we also have some Wheaten Old English Game Bantams. They have all been pretty good over the years with no big issues, then, 2 1/2 yrs ago, we saved a baby bantam that wasn't in the best shape and the others were trying to kill it. He grew into a rooster and became our pet.
For about the past year, our roosters (we call him lil shicken) comb and waddles have been turning purple for no reason that we could find. Then I started getting what looked like hives every time I held him. We finally figured out he had some kind of mites. I bought some bovine ivermectin pour on and we put two drops from a dropper on him once a month and they went away, and he started looking better.
Then on October 14th, he tried to fight another smaller bantam that we had in a cage, got his head stuck between the bars. He ripped the back part of his comb off his head trying to get it out. He bled everywhere but it stopped by the next day and over the next couple of weeks seemed to heal nicely although the comb is shriveling now, is turning a deep purple color and falling over one eye.
This injury seemed trigger something in him and he became very sick. He is all puffed up and won't eat and sleeps most of the time. We thought he may have air sac mites and/or gapeworm since he seem to "yawn" a lot. We gave him ivermectin again. We had stopped giving it to him after the mites went away, we worried we may overdose him since he is so small and we really weren't sure of how much he of the pour on he should have. We also noticed he was sneezing a lot, scratching his ears and shaking his head. He was also "clicking" when he breathes. The ivermectin seemed to make the yawning go away and the scratching and head shaking less but he still clicked and sounded like rattled when he breathed. Then we gave terramycin we got at Tractor Supply. We looked at the dosage and figured it out for his weight. But he wasn't getting any better.
I called several vets but no one will see a chicken. I finally found one far away that would see him. He gave our chicken oral ivermectin and an oral antibiotic, SMZ-TMP and took a stool sample. The next day he called us and told us our chicken a bad case of tapeworms, he said he was a 4 on a scale of 1 to 4 and gave us fenbendazole ( no concentration listed on the package) for one dose and another in 10 days.
After two days our rooster was worse. We thought he was going to die. So, after reading as much as we could find on this site and others, mainly from @Sue Gremlin and others, they said this fenbendazole should be administered for 3 to 5 days and again in 10 days. Why did our vet only give us one dose? Last night we went to Tractor Supply and got more of the fenbendazole and gave him another dose. We gave 23mg since he weighed 1.4 lbs at the vet a couple days ago and we know he's lost weight since then. He is losing weight rapidly.
This morning he is still puffed up and not eating much. If we put food right in front of him, he may eat a couple bites. We give him his food mixed with water that have probiotics and vitamins in them. We also give him scratch and anything else we can get him to eat.
We are very worried we are going lose our pet rooster. He is not eating and sleeps all the time. We don't know how much longer he will last.
After more reading we learned that fenbendazole isn't very affective against some tapeworms. Last night we also just purchased some praziquantel since we read this may be better for tapeworms.

Now, my question. Since he was given the fenbendazole on Monday and we gave him more yesterday evening. Can we give him this prdaziquantel now? Our rooster is still not showing any improvement this morning. We don't know how long it takes the fenbendazole to work, if it works and we are not sure how much longer our rooster is going to last.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Sue Gremlin]

I don't think it's unsafe to give now. At this point he seems to be headed in a really bad direction, so you need a hail mary. Fenbendazole is a safe drug and is very short-acting and is completely cleared in a couple of days. It's worth trying PZQ now. A chicken sure would have to have a ton of tapes to make him this sick though.

 

[Eggcessive]

What brand wormer to you have with praziquantel? There is Equimax and Zimectrin Gold horse paste, and each has a different dosage for chickens. There also is Drontal tablets. The dosage of the Equimax is 0.03 ml per pound given once and again in 14 days.

 

[rapidswimmer]

Thank you for the replies!
We went to Tractor Supply and found a dog dewormer (WormXPlus) with praziquantel (30mg) & pyrantel pamoate (30mg).
After posting this, my husband didn't want to wait so we gave 3.5mg of this. It says to give one tablet for a 6 to 12 lb dog. We cut the tablet into 8ths and gave him a little less than an 8th of one.
Now he's stumbling around and seems dizzy but he is drinking more than we've seen him drink in days. He's still not eating much at all. He's a small bantam, a little more than one pound. He can't afford to lose any more weight. We have not withheld any food since I don't think he will last if we do.
Any idea how soon we should see results? We have looked at pics of chicken poop with white pieces that they say are tapeworms in it and we did see this in his poop yesterday but have not seen any in it today. Wondering if he will start eating soon. Or if he will start feeling better soon.

 

[Banana01]

Are you going to feed him tonight before bed? If not, you can let him go to bed tonight with a full watery crop and whatever pieces of food he has eaten. Then see what passes this evening and in the morning. Hopefully you see some dead worms and his crop has emptied, and he will have his appetite back once the worms are through. But he should have a fairly full crop before bed, hopefully drinking on his own.

Or you can try to put some food in his mouth. A soft piece of liver or fish maybe. Just enough to help push out the blockage and give him some sustinence, but not a lot. Then the rest of hia crop full of water, about halfway.

I cant know what is best without seeing the droppings or how long he has been not eating.

If in the morning his crop has emptied and still no worms have passed, you may want to consider hand feeding something soft and highly nutritious. It will help him pass the tapeworms. They must be stuck in his system, which has never happened to me. I hope he makes it!

If he fills his crop on his own before bed that is a good sign, and if it empties in the morning that is also really good. He may eat on his own first thing in the morning if that happens.

 

[rapidswimmer]

He has all kinds of food in his cage, just trying to get him to eat anything to keep him alive. All his favs, meal worms, chick starter with water, cracked corn and he likes a pear. That seems to the be the only thing he eats consistently. He will only take a couple of bites and stops eating. He hasn't eaten hardly more than a few bites a day for about a week now. He is getting so small and weak.
He is drinking on his own today, more today than since all this started. Drinking just since we gave him the praziquantel. Not sure if that means anything.
We are also still giving him the antibiotic the vet gave us twice a day.
His crop is a little squishy now. It doesn't get very full at all. He is eating meal worms right now. Maybe we can get some more food in him before bed this evening.
So, it's possible there are dead worms stuck in him?
Next time we get a poop, I'll get a pic and post it. Since this started it's been very green but not liquid.
I hope he makes it too. We don't know what we'll do without him, he's become so close to us.

 

[Eggcessive]

Dosage of praziquantel is about 5 mg up to 10 mg per pound given once and again in 14 days.

 

[rapidswimmer]

I believe that dose is more than what we gave him but he is acting much better this evening. He is eating! Not a lot but we are glad he is eating on his own. He is also still drinking. We are very encouraged that he may make it after all.

 

[Eggcessive]

Let us know how he gets along.

 

[rapidswimmer]

This morning he is still doing well. He isn't crowing but he did eat some cracked corn, some chick starter with water and some pear. Just about two or three bites each. And he did drink some.
His crop was empty this morning.
I attached two pics of his poop. The overnight one has a seed from the scratch we put in his cage. Not part of his poop. Both the poop from overnight and this morning fell apart while I was looking at it with a toothpick. It seems sort of "hairy"? Are those worms? It isn't goopy like usual.
We are so glad he's still eating, if not as much as we'd like. He is still very unsteady and stumbles when he walks. Overall, we think he is much better today.