Vinaigrettchen
Hatching
- Jun 17, 2023
- 3
- 1
- 6
I found my 3 month old Lavender Orpington lying on her side in the coop three days ago, barely able to move at all. She seemed perfectly fine when I checked on the flock the previous evening. The rest of my flock, which includes 2 others of the same breed & age, have not exhibited any similar symptoms. They came from a hatchery and are not vaccinated.
I brought her into the house and was able to get her to drink some water and nibble at some crumble mash. She could move her wings and legs when I touched or moved them, but seemed very weak, completely unable to stand or even to sit up, and could move her head but not a lot. If I tried to sit her up, she just flopped over onto her side with her legs stretched out straight in front of where she flopped over. Her feet were curled but she could uncurl them. I couldn’t find any sign of trauma, crop issues, mites, or worms. She can see fine and seems pretty alert when someone walks in the room. The only other really obvious thing was that she had diarrhea (normal brown color).
She has improved some with treatment (detailed below), can sit up somewhat if I help her tuck her legs under her, but not fully on her own—I prop her up a bit with a towel. Her poo has solidified more as well; not totally normal yet but significantly less runny and it is brown & white. This is encouraging but I’m still really concerned about her legs—if she is just weak but can recover, then that’s one thing, but if she’s really paralyzed I don’t want to prolong her suffering. After 3 days she still is totally dependent on assistance getting to food & water. I guess what I want to ask y’all is, how long would you give a pullet like this to recover before deciding to cull? A few days, a week, a month? If you’ve had a chicken like this actually return to health, how long did it take? Is there any way to tell if they’re truly paralyzed if they can still move a little, or is it just a wait-and-see game?
Treatment so far:
-Water with a Rooster Booster product (the one with vitamins, electrolytes, and probiotics)
-Corid given orally with a syringe once a day; today is day 2. Did this on account of the diarrhea and seems to be helping. About 0.3 mL, undiluted (she weighs about 2 lbs)
-An epsom salt bath-she’s not old enough to lay yet but she needed a bath to get dried poo clumps off her anyway, so I figured may as well do the epsom salts
-today also started giving her raw egg yolk via syringe (honestly it took me a while to figure out how to get her beak open to use a syringe, which is why I hadn’t tried this before! I’m learning a lot right now.)
-Rest of the flock is getting Poultry Cell; haven’t started them on Corid*
*please note I could not find a poultry vet near me and may not have access to vet services for this
I brought her into the house and was able to get her to drink some water and nibble at some crumble mash. She could move her wings and legs when I touched or moved them, but seemed very weak, completely unable to stand or even to sit up, and could move her head but not a lot. If I tried to sit her up, she just flopped over onto her side with her legs stretched out straight in front of where she flopped over. Her feet were curled but she could uncurl them. I couldn’t find any sign of trauma, crop issues, mites, or worms. She can see fine and seems pretty alert when someone walks in the room. The only other really obvious thing was that she had diarrhea (normal brown color).
She has improved some with treatment (detailed below), can sit up somewhat if I help her tuck her legs under her, but not fully on her own—I prop her up a bit with a towel. Her poo has solidified more as well; not totally normal yet but significantly less runny and it is brown & white. This is encouraging but I’m still really concerned about her legs—if she is just weak but can recover, then that’s one thing, but if she’s really paralyzed I don’t want to prolong her suffering. After 3 days she still is totally dependent on assistance getting to food & water. I guess what I want to ask y’all is, how long would you give a pullet like this to recover before deciding to cull? A few days, a week, a month? If you’ve had a chicken like this actually return to health, how long did it take? Is there any way to tell if they’re truly paralyzed if they can still move a little, or is it just a wait-and-see game?
Treatment so far:
-Water with a Rooster Booster product (the one with vitamins, electrolytes, and probiotics)
-Corid given orally with a syringe once a day; today is day 2. Did this on account of the diarrhea and seems to be helping. About 0.3 mL, undiluted (she weighs about 2 lbs)
-An epsom salt bath-she’s not old enough to lay yet but she needed a bath to get dried poo clumps off her anyway, so I figured may as well do the epsom salts
-today also started giving her raw egg yolk via syringe (honestly it took me a while to figure out how to get her beak open to use a syringe, which is why I hadn’t tried this before! I’m learning a lot right now.)
-Rest of the flock is getting Poultry Cell; haven’t started them on Corid*
*please note I could not find a poultry vet near me and may not have access to vet services for this