Sick Silkie

[Chirpley]

Hi,

We have a 1 ½ yr old Silkie, 1074g who has gone downhill really quickly in the last day.

We noticed 4 days ago she was sleeping more than usual, but otherwise eating as normal and not showing any signs of illness until yesterday evening when she failed to join the others in the coop and seemed even more lethargic. We brought her inside and gave her 1.25g Tetracycline hydrochloride to 250ml water with electrolyte and energy supplement thinking maybe she had a respiratory infection. She only ate a little cucumber and poultry mix.

This morning when I checked on her, she was even worse, just sitting huddling in one spot, barely eating and won’t touch the poultry mix and weighs 20g less. We tried booking her in with our vet but they had no availabilities, we’ll phone again tomorrow morning.

She sneezed once and has a little mucus around her mouth. She seems to be dizzy when closing her eyes. Could her head movement be vertigo due to an inner ear infection or could it be more serious and neurological in nature?

Just over a year ago our first Silkie died within a week of showing symptoms very similar to what this poor girl is experiencing. It appeared neurological in nature and caused loss of balance, lethargy, weight loss, loss of appetite and nystagmus. We received this Silkie 10 months ago as a pullet.

I’ve taken photos and video, hopefully someone here might have an idea of what’s going on.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Ponypoor]

@RebeccaBoyd
@bgmathteach
@rural mouse

Any ideas for this wee pullet?

 

[Ponypoor]

Almost looks like wry neck

 

[BlueWyandotte]

Have you checked if the chicken might have the same infection that your other died of? You should probably separate from the rest of the coop.

 

[BlueWyandotte]

May be infectious coryza, or another transmitted disease. Probably a respiratory disease. I would give the chicken some antibiotics, and antimicrobials

 

[BlueWyandotte]

Almost looks like wry neck

If it is wry neck, give plenty of vitaman E and antibiotics

 

[Certified Chicken Lover]

@Debbie292d

 

[Debbie292d]

With sneezing and mucous, was the mucous clear like water?

Here's what I'd do. Treat like wry neck/neurological and vitamin deficiency at the same time. She'd need 400 i.u. of Vit E. and selenium. For the selenium, she'll need some scrambled eggs or part of a can of tuna. Once per day for a couple of weeks to see any change.

Get a B complex vitamin. If human version, 1/4 of a pill. You're going to give her the E and B by prying her beak open and popping it in. She'll eat it.

I'd also give Poultry Cell in water every other day for a couple of weeks too.

For the sneezing, I'm guessing that's a separate issue. The vitamins would help that, but she might wind up needing an antibiotic for it. The amoxicillin I have is for aquarium fish, called Aqua-Mox. Some is called Fish Mox. You can get it online or in pet stores that carry aquarium fish.


I had one sneezing with dripping clear mucous from mouth. I had amoxicillin here so I brought the sneezing one in the house and gave her 200 mg 2x day. That got rid of the sneezing. I don't know what that clear mucous ever was, but she returned outside after 5 days and I haven't seen it since. That's coming from the crop I assume as chickens don't vomit.


I hope this helps. Be patient as it could be a few days or even weeks before improvement shows.

 

[Eggcessive]

Do the urates in her poop look as yellow there as they do in the pictures above? She is not eating enough which is making the dropping green. I would try to get her drinking some sugar water or electrolytes, and offer some scrambled egg and mushy wet chicken feed. Could she have suffered an injury to her neck or head? Any chance of eating something moldy or bad for her? Does she lay eggs normally? Is she having any weakness of either leg? If you should lose this one, I would have your state vet do a necropsy. Here is a list of state vets to contact:
https://www.metzerfarms.com/poultry-labs.html

 

[Chirpley]

Hi, sorry for not getting back to you all sooner and thank you for the helpful replies, yesterday was a long, emotional day.

Unfortunately, Derpley was euthanised yesterday morning after consultation with our vet. We didn’t want her to suffer and we all thought it best for her.

Our vet suspected Lymphoid Leukosis. Our other Silkie passed away just over a year ago and came from the same breeder as Derpley and she said the disease is passed through the egg from mother to chick.

She thought maybe it wasn’t Marek’s because it is highly contagious and we would have noticed it in our other chickens (we have our 3 Belgian D'Uccle’s – almost 2 years old, our first chooks, 1 Polish x Silkie – as seen in the photos 2 yrs old, have had for 1 1/2yrs, 1 Australorp 1 yr old, had since birth and 1 Australorp x Araucana chick, 1 month old.) Personally, I’m not sure about ruling out Marek’s, but I always assume the worst.

Derpley had the following symptoms on the last day that developed very swiftly: Weakness and unsteadiness and unable to support her right wing and leg, periodic gasping and panting – vet said lungs were clear and no fluid buildup, green droppings, lethargy, not eating or drinking, vision impaired and unresponsive to finger movements and drastic weight loss – 30g overnight and trying to peck at food but missing completely or pecking the air a cm away from food.

We’ve inspected our other chickens who look OK besides our Polish x Silkie who didn’t appear very responsive to finger movements and no pupil dilation testing with a torch. But she was able to see this mealworm:

The grey around her pupils concerns me though, is this normal?

Eggcessive, her urates were all white. She may have eaten something moldy as we feed them vegetables regularly which may sit outside for a few days. We’ll stop doing this and make sure they’re only given enough to eat within a few hours period. We live in Australia, when we asked our vet about a necropsy, she said it was around $500 + additional costs for viral testing and can’t be done locally because we’re in a regional area.

I hope our other chickens are going to be OK, we're not sure where to go from here.