white muscle disease (nutritional muscular dystrophy)

[my beautiful girls]

Has anyone had experience with the treatment for white muscle disease?

I know vit e is fat soluble and cannot be given indefinately daily. she gets crickets or scrambled egg for selenium.

she is eating and drinking with an occassional tube feed and/or sub q fluids when she declines. ( after 4-5 days of no vit e)

Right now my girl is getting 400iu vit e and 1 ml of poultry cell (i just started that).

everytime I take her off of vit e she declines and her balance is a lot worse.
she has all the symptoms of this disease. She also positive for Infectious bronchitis virus and is on superlorin implant as the virus has wrecked her reproductive tract.

any suggestions for the vitamin e regimen?

I have already spent $1000.00 on her and I have figured out her illness on my own via blood work and symptoms because the vet had no answers to why she is this way.

 

[2ndTink]

I have no experience with this, but let's give your post a bump and see if someone else jumps in.

@Wyorp Rock @TwoCrows

 

[TwoCrows]

Oh gosh, I am so sorry your girl is struggling. I don't have any hands on experience with this, although a friend of mine had a rooster that had great difficulty with strength and weakness too. She used Poultry Cell on him, it didn't cure or fix him but it definitely helped quite a bit that he was able to at least get around. Daily he got a small syringe full orally. I do recommend a well rounded supplement made for poultry for birds that have trouble absorbing nutrients which I think maybe what causes this chronic weakness. Click on that link I provided in Poultry Cell above, it will take you to Chewy.

Massive hugs to you and your girl.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with the disease. I've read about it a little being found in meat birds, I'm not sure how prevalent it is in laying hens.

Having an official diagnosis is always a good idea, then you can do some heavier research and see if you can find a way to manage symptoms.

It would be good to reach out to your State Lab to see if they offer any testing for this. You are in CA, so UC Davis is your lab network for poultry. I'd contact the closest one to you and consult them to see what services and testing they can provide. If I remember correctly, your state is fairly reasonable on testing.


https://www.metzerfarms.com/poultry...LSsJ3AxtDiwQVssOGSpnS0jFuO9dRFnSSJ6CasbQcO3-d

 

[my beautiful girls]

Oh gosh, I am so sorry your girl is struggling. I don't have any hands on experience with this, although a friend of mine had a rooster that had great difficulty with strength and weakness too. She used Poultry Cell on him, it didn't cure or fix him but it definitely helped quite a bit that he was able to at least get around. Daily he got a small syringe full orally. I do recommend a well rounded supplement made for poultry for birds that have trouble absorbing nutrients which I think maybe what causes this chronic weakness. Click on that link I provided in Poultry Cell above, it will take you to Chewy.

Massive hugs to you and your girl.

@TwoCrows thank you for the reply. I talked to the vet yesterday on the phone. since there was not a diagnosis a month ago when I took ophelia in, I wanted her opinion again on what could be wrong. She kept saying leukemia, I said why is she improving when I start up the vitamin e and declining when i try to wean her off. I did not tell the vet I thought is was white muscle disease. then the vet said it could be white muscle disease. I asked her what would be the regimen for that because ophelia declines when i stop the 400iu of vit e and i know she cant be on that dose forever. so the vet is sending me an injectable a,e,d vitamin that i can give orally daily. that has 200 iu of vit e plus the others. I will try it for 2-4 weeks if she is good after the 2-4 weeks then i can buy the vit e off the shelf at the drug store.

I did do 3 days of poultry cell when I tube feed her. I do agree that ophelia has a difficult time absorbing nutrients as well.

 

[my beautiful girls]

I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with the disease. I've read about it a little being found in meat birds, I'm not sure how prevalent it is in laying hens.

Having an official diagnosis is always a good idea, then you can do some heavier research and see if you can find a way to manage symptoms.

It would be good to reach out to your State Lab to see if they offer any testing for this. You are in CA, so UC Davis is your lab network for poultry. I'd contact the closest one to you and consult them to see what services and testing they can provide. If I remember correctly, your state is fairly reasonable on testing.


https://www.metzerfarms.com/poultry...LSsJ3AxtDiwQVssOGSpnS0jFuO9dRFnSSJ6CasbQcO3-d

@Wyorp Rock thank you for the reply. I responded to two crows if you wanted to see what the vet said yesterday.

 

[TwoCrows]

@TwoCrows thank you for the reply. I talked to the vet yesterday on the phone. since there was not a diagnosis a month ago when I took ophelia in, I wanted her opinion again on what could be wrong. She kept saying leukemia, I said why is she improving when I start up the vitamin e and declining when i try to wean her off. I did not tell the vet I thought is was white muscle disease. then the vet said it could be white muscle disease. I asked her what would be the regimen for that because ophelia declines when i stop the 400iu of vit e and i know she cant be on that dose forever. so the vet is sending me an injectable a,e,d vitamin that i can give orally daily. that has 200 iu of vit e plus the others. I will try it for 2-4 weeks if she is good after the 2-4 weeks then i can buy the vit e off the shelf at the drug store.

I did do 3 days of poultry cell when I tube feed her. I do agree that ophelia has a difficult time absorbing nutrients as well.

It's always heartbreaking when they are struggling and so many times we are clueless as to how to heal them. Best wishes with her and please keep us posted.