Urgent! Chick got string around tongue.

[justplainbatty]

The chick is doing better this morning, the swelling went down considerably but the tongue still looks off. It's discolored, not black just bruised looking, and still swollen. I definitely think it's going to need antibiotics, but I have no idea which would be appropriate. It's a 5 week old, DOH was February 6th.

I tried to offer a bit of mash this morning but it wanted nothing to do with it. It did, however, want it's regular dry food. It's been drinking well, too.

So glad it's doing better! Not sure which antibiotic tylan or oxytetracycline, but being less swollen and wanting regular food is GOOD!

 

[Meaghan]

Oxytetracycline is available at TSC, so that would be easy to get. It is broad spectrum, so I'd imagine it should do just fine. The chicks haven't been exposed to anything so it likely hasn't been exposed to any resistant bacteria. Not sure of Tylan, never heard of it.

 

[justplainbatty]

Oxytetracycline is available at TSC, so that would be easy to get. It is broad spectrum, so I'd imagine it should do just fine. The chicks haven't been exposed to anything so it likely hasn't been exposed to any resistant bacteria. Not sure of Tylan, never heard of it.

Tylan is also available at TSC and comes in an injectable form. It's in the cattle/sheep/goat section but can be used for chickens.Most chicken folks use Tylan50.

 

[Meaghan]

That would explain why I've never heard of it. We have goats, but we haven't needed antibiotics for them. Not sure which to use, then.

 

[Meaghan]

We picked up oxytetracycline from TSC today, the Tylan was 4x as much and the chick has been doing progressively better throughout the day. Now it's hard to tell the chick apart attitude wise from the rest (they're all pretty flighty, we haven't worked much on taming yet because we're still trying to arrange a few aquariums of mealworms), and it's having no trouble eating or drinking. I think we're going to watch closely and hope we don't need to use the antibiotics.

 

[justplainbatty]

We picked up oxytetracycline from TSC today, the Tylan was 4x as much and the chick has been doing progressively better throughout the day. Now it's hard to tell the chick apart attitude wise from the rest (they're all pretty flighty, we haven't worked much on taming yet because we're still trying to arrange a few aquariums of mealworms), and it's having no trouble eating or drinking. I think we're going to watch closely and hope we don't need to use the antibiotics.

It doesn't sound as if it needs antibiotics at this point.

Honey has antibacterial properties, you could put a dab on it's tongue if you like. If it is eating, drinking, playing normally I wouldn't worry too much now. Chickens have a great capacity to heal, amazing what they can get through.

 

[Meaghan]

I'd say! The gasping that it was doing when we found it made me think we found it too late and that it had already panicked itself to death, in a manner of getting too hot, dehydrated, etc. Poor chick. It looks even better to day, you can't tell the difference at all unless you pick them up an inspect their mouths (which is hard to do when all 10 BO chicks look identical!).

 

[justplainbatty]

I'd say! The gasping that it was doing when we found it made me think we found it too late and that it had already panicked itself to death, in a manner of getting too hot, dehydrated, etc. Poor chick. It looks even better to day, you can't tell the difference at all unless you pick them up an inspect their mouths (which is hard to do when all 10 BO chicks look identical!).

When next you find that chick, take a dark colored sharpie and mark the back of the head just behind the comb.

 

[Meaghan]

We were going to use nail polish, actually!

 

[chickenpatch]

Continue feeding it, and making sure it has plenty of water. I'm not too sure about the antibiotics though, if it was an open wound on the skin, most creams would have being fine, but since its on the tongue and the chick could swallow the treatment, be sure it is not toxic.