What do I tell the lab to test for? Need help!

[azygous]

My 13 month old Brahma Izzy has been sick for nine days now. He's been on amoxicillin for six days, and showing no sign of improvement. His poop is green and white and watery. He's weak, lethargic, and barely is eating. He is too weak to crow. He cannot even make it up onto his perch on his own even though it's just ten inches off the floor.

Here is a photo of his poop. I sent a stool specimen off to the University of Colorado Vet Labs yesterday. But I have no idea what to instruct them to test for. Can anyone take a couple of wild guesses as to what could be causing him to be so sick? No watery eyes or discharges. No blood in the stools.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

 

[KayTee]

It's only a possibility, but you could ask them to test for Clostridium Perfringens. It's similar (but not identical) to botulism. One of my girls suffered from this a while back - my post about it is here

I didn't take a photo of my girl's poo, but Nambroth has posted a photo of poo produced by her girl Coho, when she was suffering from the same thing, and it looked very similar to what my girl was producing:



I know that this seems more watery than the photo you've posted, but in my girl it was quite 'explosive', and often had a lot more white liquid than clear. (Quite similar to your photo).

What dosage of amoxicillin are you giving your roo, and is it in the water or on a treat? I have never had good results with water based dosages - I prefer to work out the daily dose and add it to the smallest possible amount of a treat that I know they will eat (boiled rice, yogurt, scrambled egg, etc.) Even if they only eat it in one dose per day as opposed to little doses through the day, you at least know that they're getting the full amount.

Keep us updated with your boy - all the best for him

 

[azygous]

Thanks! I'll tell the lab to test for Clostridium Perfringens. I did see that it kind of matches that on the "Poop Chart".

Izzy is getting 250 mg of amoxicillin in one dose each morning for ten days, and this is his sixth day on it. It worked for his mom, a Brahma just like him, when she appeared to have the same illness several weeks ago. I was breaking the capsule open and mixing the powder with peanut butter. But then someone on BYC told me how to open his mouth by pulling down on his wattles. It's easy to just slip the whole capsule in, so now that's the way I do it. I've also been giving him Pountry Nutridrench daily to keep his nutrition up somewhat.

The good news is I was just out in the run and noticed Izzy's poops seem to have solidified into solid little balls, and he's eating some chick crumbles.

 

[KayTee]

Just wondering how Izzy is doing - I hope that he's continuing to improve.

How long before you get the results from the lab? Even if he is getting better, it would be good to know what the cause was.