Wry neck, how to know if this is a one-way slide?

[Tumbleweedlynn]

I’m sorry for your problems. It can be so insanely frustrating not knowing what is going on or why.

I have been doing some reading up on Marek’s and other illness with similar presentations, and in doing that came across what may be your state’s necropsy information. https://cahfs.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/tests-and-fees
I hope you don’t need it, and that this will end on a positive note

 

[aliris]

OK then, down the hatch it went. Let's see if the sometime miracle drug will work for here. I'm skeptical; I doubt it's bacterial but it's not like I have one wit of evidence, so. It may be hard for me to be angry with factory farms abusing antibiotics going forward. smh. All manner of good wishes and best luck beamed this way will be happily accepted. Thanks BYC!

 

[aliris]

I’m sorry for your problems. It can be so insanely frustrating not knowing what is going on or why.

I have been doing some reading up on Marek’s and other illness with similar presentations, and in doing that came across what may be your state’s necropsy information. https://cahfs.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/tests-and-fees
I hope you don’t need it, and that this will end on a positive note

Oh, thank you very much! I have one now dead and buried 48 hours so they may no longer want it. -- oh, and if we're talking up at Davis, my dd is up there but it's a 6 hour drive or so. But I'm sure there'll be info for down here. Thank you!!

 

[azygous]

You can call the lab at UC Davis and inquire if there is a state lab nearer to LA. There has to be. When my uncle had his commercial chicken farm in Lucerne Valley in the 50s, my aunt would regularly stop by to see us on her trips into LA with dead chickens on ice in her car trunk she was taking to a lab for necropsies. (No, you can't just dig up a dead chicken and get any kind of accurate results, and a lab would not accept anything other than a very fresh specimen, anyway.)

Giving a double dose of an antibiotic to a very sick chicken at the outset can flood her system and get a good start on killing bacteria. It will do no harm. Also, it's not factual that treating one sick chicken with an antibiotic that you will cause antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance is caused by large commercial animal operations using antibiotics every day, year after year to counteract the filthy conditions they're too cheap to deal with.

I'm looking forward very much to your morning report on our little patient.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Any canker or lesions inside her beak?
There's swelling of the earlobe, is there infection in the ear?

 

[aliris]

Any canker or lesions inside her beak?
There's swelling of the earlobe, is there infection in the ear?


View attachment 3476697

Hmmm, intresting. I did notice a big lump but didn't think about it. There's so much popping out all over, and I have no sense of the "baseline". I did look in her mouth today, it was so interesting. I didn't see any lesions, but I wasn't really looking specifically. But I think I would have noticed if it was big or ugly or obvious. She did scratch at her ear, way back in the "beginning" when I first noticed this. But I think you're circling her left ear and it was her right ear she was scratching. Then again it's probably symmetrical if it's there. I am ashamed to say I don't know where a chicken ear is....

But I just looked it up and my how right you are. I will inspect when next I handle her. ty!

 

[aliris]

I did just check again, wondering whether that swelling was an artifact of maybe her being wet from the feeding or a funny angle she was resting. But no, you are indeed right that is a swollen... earlobe the picture I looked at seemed to suggest?

I am going to hold a shred of hope this might be a good guess/protocol. I mean, it's not as if the vit E+protein(fungus) tack seemed to be working, so while I have zero evidence of whether fungus-bacteria or virus, the conditional probability might have become higher if that ruled out fungus?? Crossing all digits.

I'm attaching a picture from 4/20 and 4/21 for comparison of the earlobe.

 

[aliris]

Well, friends ~ With a very sad heart I return to tell you that our efforts did not succeed. Zizania is dead.

She wasn't dead this morning, she survived the night as I thought she would. She seemed perkier, better. And in the morning her ear seemed a bit less swollen. She was less labored in her eyes and looking around. I took a picture to show you the slight improvement in the ear, maybe, and noted that it was indeed far worse on her left than right side.

I got vit E into her and a whole 250mg of amoxicillan - just as azygous suggested. Bread with a bit of oil to sop it all up. A lot of water with all of that and in the middle of eating some kibble (what I call pellets of her layer feed), she started crazy-flapping her wings, just insane, up and back curling into a ball. I settled her and she did it again. And then she closed her eyes and drifted. There was some very nasty release of fluids from the rear - smelly and watery and green. And when light grey colored yuckiness came from her mouth too I realized she hadn't just drifted off back to sleep. She was really dead. Right in my arms, and I barely knew it for sure.

Is that an avian heart attack? It was 7:18am. She had appeared pretty clear-eyed and bright; I thought perhaps she was going to make it.

And now I am so paranoid about the other two. It was at this point in the trajectory of the other that I noticed Zizania's malaise. And now I'm worried for the other two. They're quiet now. No eggs for ages. And the buff orpington is .... itching her right ear. And her tail is a little low, with a bump. And she sits in a dirt mound and clenches her -- what is it called on a chicken, cloaca?? vent? I guess I need to learn chicken anatomy. She is making groaning noises, not distress, just not super-typical. I've heard these noises from her before, but they are not happy chickens. I could pick her up and inspect the ear. But I won't know what to do when or if I find something off.

As someone said above, it is so awful to not know what to do. Oh the interlaced lives we weave, even between species.

Anyway, thanks to azygous and all the others who have said nice things and contributed thoughtful hints. I understand why when I was growing up and our dog died, my mom said 'no mas'. So sad. ttfn.

 

[azygous]

Sad, sad, sad. We can pull all the tricks out of the bag, and still lose a chicken. Some things are not treatable and other things may have gone to far by the time the symptoms are noticeable.

The best way to protect your remaining chickens is to get this chicken necropsied. Put her body in a plastic bag as is. Don't try to clean her up or anything. Refrigerate not freeze. Then Monday morning make a phone call to your nearest university extension office and ask where the nearest animal testing lab is. Then take her there. Chances are you can have the mystery solved, if not that same day, but within the next few days.

 

[aliris]

thank you, azygous