Terramycin caused molting?

[Renee]

Hi y'all,
Nugget got a sour crop again, and we had to clean it out with the syringe, starve her for two days, then start her on soft foods and Terramycin for a week. She's back on solid foods now, but she has begun to molt. It's cold here (well, it's been cold for Southern California, so those of you in the rest of the country, don't laugh) down to 28 degrees at night.

Does Terramycin cause some chickens to molt? She was only born on March 26, so I didn't think she would molt until next year. I'm giving her some scrambled egg every day, anything else I can do?

 

[ThePolishPrincess]

We used the powdered version of Terramycin (sp?) for our rooster with a Respiratory Infection. He started to get better and when I took him off the anti-biotics, he got worse again. I tried a second time an he didn't get better at all. I, stupidly, left a feeding cup in his area and when he went to sleep, got his head stuck in there and sufficated. We think he didn't have the energy it took to pull himself out.


My point: We don't like Terramycin. It wasn't cnsistent as far as healing the aimal goes. We kept him on there for a while and even increased his intake of medication.

As far as feather loss goes, just watch out. We had broody hens who were separated from the flock to de-broody and started losing feathers like it was money! It might be a stress thing. Just watch out; there might not be a problem yet.


Just keep an eye on your Nugget and good luck!

 

[silkiechicken]

I have a few hens who have just dropped naked at this time of year. Odd, but they will moult at the worst times... Mine started dropping her feathers when it was 20F out and a foot of snow.

Stress can induce a moult, but I want to say in your situation it was timing.

Often, if an infection is secondary, and there is an underlying problem such as a viral infection. No matter how much antibiotics you pump in a bird, and how much you sterilze the enviornment, you can use an antiboitc to fix something that isn't based on bacteria.

That said, antiboitcs can be seen as something to heal and animal. It is an indiscriminat killer of ALL baceterial. It will kill the 99.8% of the good healhty bacteria required for the bird to stay alive and digest their food, along with the .2 that are making them sick. It's not a cure all and due to overuse, many don't work well anymore.

 

[mypicklebird]

Quote:
It is stories like this that make me continue to wish that systemic antibiotics were not available OTC at feed stores and pet stores.
Used appropriately (meaning susceptible bacterial infection, at appropriate doses and for long enough) terramycin is a good antibiotic. It is useless for parasites, viral infections, and bacteria resistant to it. Starting to get better, removal of antibiotic, getting worse again- now it doesn't work- recipe for creating resistant bacteria.

 

[speckledhen]

Yep, I dont like Terramycin. It's pushed by every feedstore full of ignorant people who know nothing about chickens OR they have a head full of misinformation. It's pretty useless, IMO. And if they have a virus, it's more than useless, it shouldn't be used at all.
It will not cause molting, however, your bird is about 9 months old, a time I've found they do a mini-molt.

 

[Renee]

I'm with all of you. I scold people all of the time for their indiscriminate use of such important drugs.

As I understand you all, Terramycin has been so overused that most bacteria have developed resistance to it? What a shame.

This is the first time we have used an antibiotic. I was hesitant to use it, but it was a last ditch effort to avoid euthanizing the chicken. If she gets an impacted or sour crop again, I will send her to chicken heaven. It was so hard on everyone- her, me, the other chickens- to have her separated for two weeks, eating soft foods, and so on. I have been giving the chickens some olive oil in cooked oatmeal as per Speckledhen's suggestion. Any other advice on how to keep her healthy?

Oh yeah: mixing the Terramycin gave me hives for two weeks.