cyrak6
Hatching
- Jul 30, 2015
- 1
- 0
- 7
Hi, everyone... wish I had a happier introduction... 
I have an almost three month old Light Brahma that I got with three other chicks the same age, and are part of my younger flock of about 12 chicks. She has never seemed quite right since I got her about a month ago - she didn't seem to know how to peck right, and would often miss what she was pecking at. She has since gotten over that, but I still call her my "special" girl, because she is a bit smaller than the others, and was always just much more tame, going so far as to lay her head down and close her eyes when I would hold her and pet her. Yesterday around 8pm, I went out to feed them some mealworms, and everyone came running up, including her. When I picked her up on my lap, though, I noticed she was very thin, just bones and feathers, and very weak - she immediately laid down in my lap, and just seemed limp. Then I noticed she was making this "gulping" or "gasping" motion with her head, and her eyes were half closed. No sound at all, and her breathing was not raspy or gurgly. Just the motion, over and over. She seemed totally fine just a couple days ago, when I last spent some time with them. I am a vet tech, but work only with cats and dogs - I have no experience with chickens - but it looked to me like what we call agonal breathing, basically the last gasps. I felt her crop, and it felt like it was slightly inflated with air - not tight, just mostly air, not food or liquid. In just the few minutes I sat there, she became noticeably worse. I took her in the house and started looking up the symptoms. Nothing really seemed to fit, but I figured I would try some of what it said about sour crop. I had a red rubber feeding tube and a syringe, so I used them to infuse some warm water into her crop, and then held her upside down and massaged her crop. Some slightly digested food and liquid (the water, I assume) came out, but it didn't seem to help or change anything. It was too late to call anyone, and I had to work this morning, so I finally just flushed one last syringe full (about 10 mL) of water with a little baking soda down there, and put her in a box with a small waterer. I fully expected her to be dead this morning, and again when I got home from work today, but she wasn't. She is obviously going to die, though, if I can't figure this out, and she really is a sweet little thing. I took a short video of what she is doing, posted below (hopefully, if I did it correctly). She also occasionally makes something like a "honking" noise a couple of times, and then is quiet again. She cannot walk, or even really stand up. She just staggers around and falls over. None of the other chicks are sick, and even her stools (at least what she did in the box overnight) don't look all that bad. I have been giving them Corid, as I had seen a few brown runny stools in the pen, and I have had some chicks with coccidia in the past. This doesn't look like that, though. I had also just treated them all a few days ago with Wazine, just in case the runny stools were from parasites. They are all eating a 24% protein chick starter (non medicated), and I was planning to knock them down to 20% grower when this bag runs out. They also get dried mealworms as a treat, and there is a little bit of weeds and grass in their pen. The floor of the coop is coarse sand, and they also have chick grit available. I did actually feel some grit in her crop last night when I was massaging it.
Does anyone have any ideas? I don't think she has long, if anything can even be done at this point. Let me know if there is any other info that might be helpful... thanks!!
Eileen
I have an almost three month old Light Brahma that I got with three other chicks the same age, and are part of my younger flock of about 12 chicks. She has never seemed quite right since I got her about a month ago - she didn't seem to know how to peck right, and would often miss what she was pecking at. She has since gotten over that, but I still call her my "special" girl, because she is a bit smaller than the others, and was always just much more tame, going so far as to lay her head down and close her eyes when I would hold her and pet her. Yesterday around 8pm, I went out to feed them some mealworms, and everyone came running up, including her. When I picked her up on my lap, though, I noticed she was very thin, just bones and feathers, and very weak - she immediately laid down in my lap, and just seemed limp. Then I noticed she was making this "gulping" or "gasping" motion with her head, and her eyes were half closed. No sound at all, and her breathing was not raspy or gurgly. Just the motion, over and over. She seemed totally fine just a couple days ago, when I last spent some time with them. I am a vet tech, but work only with cats and dogs - I have no experience with chickens - but it looked to me like what we call agonal breathing, basically the last gasps. I felt her crop, and it felt like it was slightly inflated with air - not tight, just mostly air, not food or liquid. In just the few minutes I sat there, she became noticeably worse. I took her in the house and started looking up the symptoms. Nothing really seemed to fit, but I figured I would try some of what it said about sour crop. I had a red rubber feeding tube and a syringe, so I used them to infuse some warm water into her crop, and then held her upside down and massaged her crop. Some slightly digested food and liquid (the water, I assume) came out, but it didn't seem to help or change anything. It was too late to call anyone, and I had to work this morning, so I finally just flushed one last syringe full (about 10 mL) of water with a little baking soda down there, and put her in a box with a small waterer. I fully expected her to be dead this morning, and again when I got home from work today, but she wasn't. She is obviously going to die, though, if I can't figure this out, and she really is a sweet little thing. I took a short video of what she is doing, posted below (hopefully, if I did it correctly). She also occasionally makes something like a "honking" noise a couple of times, and then is quiet again. She cannot walk, or even really stand up. She just staggers around and falls over. None of the other chicks are sick, and even her stools (at least what she did in the box overnight) don't look all that bad. I have been giving them Corid, as I had seen a few brown runny stools in the pen, and I have had some chicks with coccidia in the past. This doesn't look like that, though. I had also just treated them all a few days ago with Wazine, just in case the runny stools were from parasites. They are all eating a 24% protein chick starter (non medicated), and I was planning to knock them down to 20% grower when this bag runs out. They also get dried mealworms as a treat, and there is a little bit of weeds and grass in their pen. The floor of the coop is coarse sand, and they also have chick grit available. I did actually feel some grit in her crop last night when I was massaging it.
Does anyone have any ideas? I don't think she has long, if anything can even be done at this point. Let me know if there is any other info that might be helpful... thanks!!
Eileen
