weight loss, watery green poop, lethargy...what antibiotic to try?

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BTW, any advice on the best way to force feed from a syringe....I hate to have to put her through this and she was really struggling with me this morning.

I swaddle her in a towel and then hold her between my knees. I extend her neck up and press on the sides or her beak to get her to open it. This she does not like. It's where we run into problems. Any ideas on how to resolve this? She swallows well when I inject the food in (no needle of course) and never coughs or sputters so I imagine it's going to the right place....It's just so hard to get her to open up and not fight me...
 
I'm far from an expert but I am force feeding a sick chicken now and I find she cooperates better if I lay her on her side and then sit her upright after I've put the food in her beak. She'll swallow it when I put her upright...
 
I'm wondering if she has thrush. It is painful, and could likely cause her to not want to eat/drink. Treatment is pretty simple--get some blu-kote and swab her throat (be careful---anything the blu-kote touches will become a bright purple either permanently or for a very long time).

I am wondering about this vet's experience with poultry? Parasites are VERY common, not at all unusual in backyard flocks. Some specific parasites are fairly uncommon (tape worm, for example), but various other types of worms, lice and mites are extremely common. Never having these is actually what can be considered rare.

I would not be giving vitamins (ditto with the ACV) in conjunctions with other medicines unless advised to do so by a vet. In some cases they can counteract the medicine, making it useless. It would be easier to simply pop a pill of the correct strength down her throat once or twice a day, and give water as needed to keep her hydrated. You can purchase doxycycline for birds or fish OTC. I have difficulty figuring out the dose for the fish antibiotics, but the bird ones are pretty straight forward.

The green droppings show that she is starving. She needs nutrition. Drop pellets of her food down her throat if she will not eat on her own, or mash up or slice some hardboiled egg to slip down her throat; never too much at once. Get her some wax worms or crickets or mealworms from the pet store and see if she will eat them--live food often will perk up lethargic birds.

If she did eat moldy food, you will need to flush the toxins out of her system. This means she needs much larger amounts of fluids, and preferably with molassas or epsom salts. If she does not improve on the antibiotics, then try a flush, but if she is improving, don't.
 
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do you press against the sides of her beak to get her to open up? .I don't want her to aspirate which is why I hesitate placing her on her side to feed her, but I will give it a shot
 
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From reading the other posts in this thread I am all but convinced this is a fungal infection. You are right to doubt the vet's experience and I am becoming increasingly frustrated because the office staff doesn't seem to know which end is up and no one is giving me direct answers to the simplest questions, yet there is no other vet in the area that sees chickens that I know of. I've dropped off a stool sample which will test for parasites and I've also asked them to run a culture and sensitivity to check for fungal infection (a whopping $120 for that test alone)

With thrush would they have a white coating in their mouths or throats? she had a spot of greenish grey plaque in her throat when the vet checked her. It definitely looked infectious and, to my untrained eyes, fungal (I am a nurse so I have plenty of experience in humans, but not birds)

You noted I shouldn't give the vitamins or the ACV with other medicines. What did you mean by ACV? i have 100mg doxycycline capsules but they are much too big -about an inch long-- to put them down her throat whole. However, if I treat with antibiotics and the infection is in fact fungal the antibiotics could make things worse, right?

She is definitely starving. I got her some worms from the garden today which she gobbled down, I also cooked up some hamburger and mashed that up because of the info that she needs protein not sugars or carbs to combat the fungus. She ate the hamburger pretty well. Getting fluids into her is going to be a challenge. I already gave today's dose of antibiotics. I am going to wait to get back the cultures to give the next dose.

This is so frightening and frustrating. The other birds have watery droppings as well and are becoming less active. Egg production is down to nearly nothing. maybe 3-4 per week total, and that's from 3 other birds. I am terrified I am going to lose my whole flock to this starving, wasting disease although the others are showing no weight loss yet. I only hope I can figure out what to do before it's too late for all of them.
 
Molasses (like in Poultry Nutri-Drench) might be iffy since it is sugary. But on the other hand, molasses is supposed to help flush things out of the sytem, so ??? Plus there are good vitamins, etc in Poultry Nutri-Drench. But maybe non-sweetened nutritional supplements would be better?

If it's a fungus, I believe antibiotics are quite bad for that because they kill off the good bacteria that helps fight off the fungus.

Someone on the following thread said they used a product called Enzymedica Virastop that sounds maybe helpful in combatting various internal health problems:
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3812
http://www.enzymedica.com/products/Virastop
I haven't seen any other reference point that would indicate if the product is useful or not.

More info on treating mycotoxicosis (fungal infection), if that is the problem:

http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/203500.htm
Treatment:
The toxic feed should be removed and replaced with unadulterated feed. Concurrent diseases should be treated to alleviate disease interactions, and substandard management practices must be corrected. Some mycotoxins increase requirements for vitamins, trace minerals (especially selenium), protein, and lipids, and can be compensated for by feed supplementation and water-based treatment. Nonspecific toxicologic therapies using activated charcoal (digestive tract adsorption) in the feed have a sparing effect but are not practical for larger production units.

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/diseaseinfo/100/mycotoxicosis
The most effective treatment is removal of the source of toxins. Addition of antifungal feed preservatives is also helpful. Increasing protein level in the feed until mortality reduces may also be beneficial. Administration of soluble vitamins and selenium (0.2 ppm), along with finely divided copper sulphate in the feed 1kg/ton for 7 days (where approved) has been used.
**Note from me: Copper sulphate is strong stuff. I don't know if I'd use it more than 5 days.

http://www.blurtit.com/q485231.html
Mycotoxicosis: Many molds—even the nonpathogenic ones—may produce toxins that can cause serious losses in poultry. Among these molds are many species of Alternaria, Penicillium and Aspergillus. Ideal conditions for outbreaks of mycotoxicosis occur where birds have access to moldy grain, or when some ingredients in their feed are moldy. Spilled feed around waterers plus the warmth needed for brooding help the molds to grow rapidly and produce toxins. Young birds 4 to 8 weeks of age are most generally affected.
They become droopy and pale and often have diarrhea. Mycotoxicosis sometimes causes a condition in chickens called "hemorrhagic syndrome" or "a plastic anemia." The condition is characterized by intramuscular hemorrhages, especially in the breast, legs and intestines. Generally, the blood is very thin and pale. The bone marrow becomes pale and yellowish, in many cases completely devoid of all normal red color.
 
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I just read that both high fats & high proteins, plus extra vitamins are supposed to be helpful in treating this.

More info on mycotoxicosis in general:

http://www.smallstock.info/info/health/poult-fung.htm

Moulds may grow on feed (either in the standing crop or, more usually, during storage). The fungal spores that are produced when the mould reproduces may be ingested or inhaled by the animal and this may itself be harmful. Many fungi, however, also produce secondary compounds called mycotoxins. These are produced to assist the fungi in its competition with bacteria and other fungi for food and space. Some of these secondary compounds are antibiotics, and this can be beneficial to the animal. However, many of these secondary compounds are harmful to the animal as well (and to humans too). The toxicity of the mycotoxins depends on the actual mycotoxin (which will depend on the species of fungus that produced it). Different species of animal are susceptible to different mycotoxins to different degrees as well. For example, aflatoxins that may flourish on badly stored feed (such as groundnuts) are highly toxic to turkeys and ducklings, less toxic to cattle, while sheep appear to be resistant to them. Young animals are also more susceptible than adults.

Mycotoxins from different sources can can attack different parts of the body, including:

the blood system (e.g. haemorrhaging into body tissues or from the lungs),
the digestive system (e.g. diarrhoea, vomiting, intestinal haemorrhage),
the respiratory system (e.g. bleeding from lungs),
the nervous system (e.g. lack of coordination),
the skin (e.g. rash, photosensitization),
the urinary system,
the reproductive system (e.g. infertility and changes to reproductive cycles),
and may also cause suppression of the immune system.
 
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This vet sounds possibly out of line on a couple of things.

Parasites are indeed VERY common in backyard flocks. If he is going to charge professional fees to treat this type of patient, he should have integrated enough education on these particular animals to know basic (as well as advanced) health info that is very foundational to diagnosing & treating problems with them.
He thought the problem might be fungal vs. bacterial, yet he went ahead & prescribed an antibiotic--which is DETRIMENTAL if the problem is fungal. He didn't even have a sign that tipped the scales toward bacterial. And the stuff in your chicken's throat would make you lean toward diagnosing fungal. I think giving the prescription was reckless of him. I, being the way I am, might request half or all of my money back (depending on how informed & prudent he seemed to be in the specifics of the situation), as he likely caused some harm through this action (which you would have had no warning against) plus cost you the extra money for the medicine.

I don't know how easy it is to clearly identify internal fungal problems from stool samples--hopefully pretty easy. If the cultures turn up some positive results for fungus or worms, that knowledge will be of value.
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I don't trust any vets very much for treating backyard chickens.
Even ones I've talked to in a big poultry department at a university didn't seem to know a lot of things necessary to accurately individually diagnose & treat backyard chickens. Their training was designed for identifying common mass problems in groups of chickens kept on large farms. Not very helpful to us small flock people...

Also, it seems a lot of small-scale vets lean unfortunately one way or another out the range of helpfulness--

~ Practical-minded about how to prescribe vet treatments, but so "country" that they believe if a single chicken is the animal that's sick the cure is simply to kill it.

~ So "exotic" that they behave like medical treatment of chickens is so complex as to regularly require advanced procedures (for which there are high vet fees), when actually being adequately informed via education & practical experience would enable them for a larger percentage of cases to consistently do sufficient conjecture & to prescribe straightforward treatments.

~ So tentative about treating chickens that they will see your bird to try to help you but have to excuse themselves for not giving much real help because they have little training with chickens.

Rough, but I think it's generally the reality at this point.
Societal value & monetary investment in backyard chickens are pretty new phenomena & the veterinary profession hasn't developed enough to match these yet.
I have heard of some vets being helpful with chickens. But I don't count on any vet to be.
 
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thank you everyone so much for the replies.

She perked up plenty to eat wax worms last night but we're definitely not out of the woods yet. I'll keep posting more info and PLEASE any advice or speculation is HUGELY welcome

This vet is really a quack. From the office staff I get answers of "I have no idea" to the simplest of questions (ie: how long does it take for a stool culture to come back?) I am very angry, but at this point I need a diagnosis.

More on this later. Thank you everyone,
bethany
 

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