Sick Peacock

chicknmania

Free Ranging
17 Years
Jan 26, 2007
6,297
1,826
582
central Ohio
This is confusing, so I'm reaching out to see what others might think. Phoenix, our 9 year old IB Peacock, has been sick for about five days now. Originally he was very lethargic, droopy wings, and would not eat anything, or drink and spent most of his time lying on the ground. I had just dewormed the flock with a broad spectrum dewormer, they finished it about a week ago. At first, I thought that maybe he has worms, and didn't get enough of the dewormer...we've had a lot of rain off and on over the summer. But he seems to be very slowly improving. I started the flock on ZyfendA in the water after they finished the dewormer, which is something we do as a standard practice, but I think it might be helping him. After three days of not eating or drinking anything, he began accepting food from my hand...chopped green grapes or cherries, scrambled eggs, he even begged for hard catfood last night, which is his favorite, though he wouldn't touch it when he first became ill. And he has been drinking the water with ZyfendA in it, although I haven't seen him drink a lot. He's not eating a lot either; just a couple of bites here and there. He still lies down a lot during the day, but He is also getting up every day now and going out for a walk, some sun, and a bit of foraging, which is an improvement from the first two days he was ill. His wings are less droopy and he looks brighter.And his head feather is not as droopy. BUT, he seems to be weaker in that he can't fly up to his higher roost. He was able to when he first got sick, but now he has been roosting lower. We have tried everything to try and catch him during the day, but he's good at side-stepping and I'm not going to chase him around a lot when he's sick. We have nets and multiple people but I think he can read my mind.... :rolleyes: and he's a lot faster than we are. I suppose I could try to catch him in the middle of the night since he is roosting lower, but he is very alert, I have never seen him sleeping at all, especially since he's been roosting lower...so it wouldn't be easy, AND I'm not sure if the stress of being caught and confined would be good for him at this point. I'm thinking that it is possible that he's suffering from worm die-off toxin, and maybe that is why he seems to be slowly improving in a lot of ways, but I know that Blackhead has similar symptoms to what he has, and I can't figure out why his flight strength seems to be diminishing, unless maybe it's just because he's not eating as much as he should be. I haven't seen him eating any regular feed, he just eats goodies, as I said. Our other peacock, Sapphire, is with him a lot, and Sapphire seems fine, except that he has developed a slight limp. The limp seems to respond to baby aspirin, so I'm guessing it's a sprain or bruise. Our one peahen is broody right now, but when she gets off the nest, she seems ok too. The rest of the flock (chickens) seem fine. We deworm quarterly, alternating broad spectrum dewormers. We've had both of our peacocks for 9 years, our peahen for five years, and to my knowledge they've never had a problem with worms before. I'm wondering if I should just continue with the ZyfendA and maybe some vitamins, or, if I can give him enough in a treat, should I try more dewormer eventually? I haven't seen any sulfur-yellow droppings. I don't THINK it's Blackhead...but I'm just not sure. Thoughts?
 
Last edited:
I did two necropsies for a friend, one had eaten a needle and a piece of plastic fence, the other ate a piece of metal. The first one had a ruptured proventriculus and gizzard, the second had a ruptured gizzard.
Ours were due to normal things like stones and feathers, then there was the piece of string that wrapped around the tongue that eventually cut the tongue off and killed the hen.
 
It's entirely possible he didn't eat enough of the pellets, although in past years it seems to have worked just fine, I always have used it. I break the pellets up and mix per scoop, so they're well mixed. Praying he does not have BH, but really, whatever he has, he is very ill. His appointment is this evening and I hope he makes it through the day. I will be surprised it if it is not BH or at least parasite related though. The sad part is that his brother has been by his side every minute in the past day or so. He is trying to protect him and watch out for him. It's painful to see them.

Thanks for the well wishes.
 
I didn't get any response at all that I could use, Eggcessive is too far away really and is not sure of a necropsy on a peacock. But thanks for the suggestion.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom