What's causing her diarrhea?

[Country4ever]

My 5 year old hen was involved in a coon attack 15 days ago and lost a 2x4" piece of skin on her back. After it happened, I brought her inside the side and gave her baytril for 7 days, and applied triple antibiotic ointment to her wound. She is still inside the house in a crate.
During the antibiotic use and every day since I would give her yogurt with live cultures and would add some powdered probiotics. I've been giving her a little Purina cat chow in addition to her usual Layena pellets. She didn't seem interested in plain water, so I've been giving her water with a little tart cherry juice (unsweetened). She has grit. I've been also giving her fruit.....watermelon, occasional grape.
Her stool sometimes is totally light clear yellow fluid. Sometimes its white with tiny green rod-shaped poop in it.
Seems to me she should be having more normal stools. Could the week of antibiotics still be causing this? Is it the yogurt? fruit? I'm getting a little concerned. Her wound is healing as it should, she's acting fine. Should I worry about this strange diarrhea?
Thanks.

 

[Glenda L Heywood]

sHE HAS A CASE OF e.COLI THAT HER GUT IS FORMING IN THE MANURE
SO DO BE SURE HE HAS enough the milk kind of probiotic
and not too much but just right amt of the boughten probiotic

also feed her some plain dry oatmeal as it will help her stool

I would put a 1-1000 mg capsule of Vit E each day in the wet mash probiotic and do this for 10 days
the Vit E will help her establish the gut flora

and as she is a senior chicken her body is not up to par yett from the nervous reaction to the attack and the antibiotics
any questions email me

 

[threehorses]

I suspect it's the additional catfood in part. Too much protein can cause digestive upset. (Just as it does in people.) It can also eventually cause calcium deficiencies. This is one possibility.

Another possibility is the amount of yogurt she's getting. A full sized hen should get 1 teaspoon of it. I'd give it every other day now that the meds are done since you only gave one course of antibiotics. Too much of a good thing is sometimes not such a good thing.

Droppings are three part: feces (the greenish brownish worm-like section), urine (usually clear water), and urates (crystallized white). The feces contain the solids of what the bird eats. If the bird is eating too little, they will appear small and green - often dark forrest green. If the bird is drinking normally, you may or may not see urine. In the summer often you will as they drink more. You should always see a little urates, even if a spec.

The fact that you're not seeing a lot of feces indicates to me that she needs more incoming to make more outgoing. The great amount of clear urine, to me, indicates that she's getting too much of it - making her droppings more fluid than not. I don't like the yellow tint. Urine should be clear. Urates should be white. Are they very yellow? At all like yolk? Or human urine?

I'd decrease the fruits as they will make an imbalance in her nutrition. She should be actually eating 90% of her pellets, and 10% everything else. Adding the cat chow further throws off that balance. Just try her pellets. In an injured bird, I'll put them in the blender because for some reason they're more likely to eat them that way. You can try to moisten them and see if she'll be more likely to get a good meal of them in her.

I'd adjust like that, continue the probiotic powder without the yogurt - one or the other is enough. make sure the probiotic powder actually contains living bacteria, not just by products. For example, Ornabac contains only byproducts - not living bacteria. That you can use with yogurt. But ones with living bacteria (measured numberically as CFU's on the label) are fine on their own; the added yogurt (dairy = protein) might be causing some of the issue.

Glad to hear she's doing good from the raccoon attack! Sounds like you're just taking TOO good care of her!

I love it!

p.s. I second Glenda's recommendations

 

[Country4ever]

Thanks for the suggestions!
So 1000 u of E isn't too much?
I hope I didn't fry her kidneys with the too-high-dose of Baytril.
She seems to have made alot of progress the first 2 weeks post-attack, but now is slowing down. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but I want to catch any problems before they escalate.
She is growing new feathers where they were torn off, but where the skin is still intact. I think that's a good sign that she's getting enough nutrition, right?
She just isn't pooping much. But I had a chronically ill chicken in the past (I drained her ascites every few months for about 4 years), and sometimes she wouldn't poop for like a month!
I guess I've been giving her too much yogurt, so I'll decrease that.

Threehorses.....when you say to put the pellets in a blender, do you mean just to break it down into smaller pieces, rather than powder? I suppose I could break it down to a fine powder and give it to her with her yogurt....which she seems to like more than her feed.

Unfortunately, I think I stressed her out yesterday. I was taking her to the back yard for a little outing.......thinking she'd love that. Well, she saw our cat on the way out and totally freaked. The whole time she was outside, she was on "high alert"........which must have stressed her. Then I gave her a bath inside, and the hair dryer wasn't working, so I dried her off as much as possible, but think she shivered for awhile before I realized it. After that, I put a lamp over her cage and she felt better. But.....I think we took a few steps backwards yesterday!

Like you said Threehorses.........I think I'm taking too good of care of her! hahaha I need to back off! Too much love! hahaha

Anyhow......thank you both for your great suggestions. I'm sure I'll have more.

 

[threehorses]

Yes - about the blender; I'd say make crumbles. Just give them a couple of pulses, not powder. I don't know why - it's the same food - but they like it better often enough for it to be noticable around here.

On the progression slow down, it might be that she had so much progression to make and now she has less to make so it's slowing down.

I had another thought about that oatmeal suggestion and still like it. That should also sooth her gut, I'd think, and give those good bacteria something to eat.

I hope she does well for you. I really do.

 

[Country4ever]

Thanks 3H's!

 

[threehorses]

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