5 days ago My 6 month old Buff Orphington was gagging. Looked like she had vomited and had a sticky mucus in her mouth. She was weak, her comb flopped over and couldn't keep her eyes open. After a long process of getting fluids & nutrients in her with a syringe to strengthen her I was trying to find my next step. I figured I had decide to treat her infection as yeast or bacterial. New and with no experience didn't want to kill her by making the wrong call by pushing her further in the wrong direction. (unfortunately a vet visit not an option for me) So I was wrecking my brain... Yeast or Bacterial...& then I had a CRAZY THOUGHT..... ran out & bought a Monistat Vaginal Test Kit. ($15 contains 2 tests) The instructions state that if the swab turns green or blue there is bacteria present (I believe it's actually the ph balance that it tests for). A negative result indicates a possible yeast infection by process of elimination. Well, that swab turned an Intense blue Immediately. Looked almost like the color of a bubblegum snowball, (deep ocean blue). I've been using Tetracycline Hydrochloride (that's the only antibiotic I could find @ local feed store) for 3 days now. She is Greatly improved today, the mucus is almost gone. I'm still feeding her, but she finally started to be come interested in food & ate a little kale on her own. Happy Dance!!! I looked everywhere online to see if I could find any data regarding the normal oral ph balance for a chicken but couldn't find anything. So,... I'm wondering if I just got lucky, or if this might be a low cost way to test a chicken to determine whether an infection is bacterial or yeast. Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks, Susan
