Can my sick chicken OD on wax worms?

[NYC feather fam]

I know this is a silly question but it seems I can only get her to eat live insects at this point....

Bubs (my little 3 year old black star) and I are battling what we believe to be a serious fungal infection from eating moldy feed (has all the hallmarks of mycotoxicosis) but she's not given up the fight yet. She is VERY weak and has nearly stopped eating and is not drinking at all. I am force feeding her yogurt with some added vitamins once or twice a day as she can tolerate it. I also forced about 5 cc of water tonight, it was about all she could get down but she tolerated it.

The one thing she is highly eager to eat is live critters. I dug up some earthworms from the garden which she chowed in about 4 seconds and going every time i would come back for me. She also ate about 1/2 of a chopped up hamburger patty today as long as I shook it around to make it look like it was wriggling.

I went to the pet store, on the advice from the board for my previous post, and got 250 wax worms. She's eaten I'd say about 70 tonight. Is this too much in one sitting. She really loved them and I know they are high in protein. I hid them in a tomato to try to get a little extra fluid into her which worked a little bit.

Question really is, how to balance the protein with fluid? how much fluid should she be taking in one day? She is starving and wasting away, only 2.4 pounds at this point, I did not catch the infection soon enough. Also , anyone know how much apple cider to give to combat a fungal infection?

 

[Attack Chicken]

Never had a chicken OD on was worms or beemoths.

A 2 lb bird should be getting 27ccs of fluid a day. I had to inject (just under the skin by the leg) fluids each day for my hen that didn't want to drink much and it perked her up alot. See if a vet or someone can give you a bag of fluids to give your girl.

 

[NYC feather fam]

Attack chicken....

thank you so much for this golden information! 27cc. gotcha. Could you please send me some details on the site where you injected the fluid. I am a nurse so I have some supplies her in the house, don't have an IV start up kit but do have plenty of syringes and various needles and some IV tubing as well as plenty of normal saline.

My other plan was to literally inject wax worms with extra fluid before feeding them to her. I thought that was a pretty good idea. also was thinking of coating them in yogurt. thoughts on this?

Thank you!

 

[Attack Chicken]

I'm glad I can try and help atleast. I would also try and get her to eat some other foods like her chicken food but watered down to make a paste, yogurt, scrambled egg, hardboiled egg yolk, and a variety of other high protein foods.

The place to inject her would be into a little flap of skin. It's under the wing and by the leg. If you feel around you should be able to lift up about an inch of skin there. The main thing is is to not let it bubble if it starts to make a bubble under the skin you have to move to the other side. If you inject it in that little skin flap it shouldn't bubble. And also just under the skin do not go deep.

About in this area will be the flap of skin. It's were the leg meets the body.

 

[NYC feather fam]

Thanks so much for the info. Thank god, she has begun drinking some water on her own so hopefully I will not have to resort to injections if she continues to improve. Funnily, the picture you posted looks just like my sick chicken, Bubs! I thought it was her when i first saw it!

As far as food, anything that's not wriggling has to be force fed, which I've been doing with yogurt for a couple of days and water as well. She won't touch eggs or pellets but her condition is improving so I'll see how it goes. My other chickens love a mash like that, I usually use one scrambled egg & the egg shell to about 1/3 cup of pellet and maybe a TSP olive oil to moisten it all up, then mash it all up and they love it.

I really appreciate the thorough information and the picture and not I know exactly what to do should I have to do it. I have injectable normal saline (O.9% NaCl) which is what I would be using, any recommendation on how many cc at a time and what type of needle to use. I have some insulin syringes but everything else I have is a larger bore, maybe 21 gauge...

 

[Lorimary]

18 guage or 16 guage should work. If you can get ahold of lactated ringers, that might be better than plain saline (but any fluids will be better than none!). The insulin type needles may take a really long time to disperse the amount of liquid you would be injecting sub-q (and if I'm not mistaken, those needles would only fit the 1cc syringe). I use the 35cc syringes with a 16 or 18g needle. I don't think you can fit more than 15cc SQ in one site in a chicken at a time (taking into account amount of loose skin and chicken patience, depending how dehydrated she is and how sick/tolerant). Just do your best and get in what you can. SQ fluids works miracles. Being a nurse, you're way ahead of the game (I'm jealous of your skill set!). Best of luck, hope your girl gets better.

 

[greenkjb]

I had an extremely sick chicken recently (7 weeks) that had coccidiosis. She would not eat or drink on her own, but I was able to get fluids into her using a curved syringe. I would draw up about 7 milliliters at a time and squirt it into her mouth a little bit at a time. I know they say not to do this because of aspiration, but my girl was fine with it. This treatment literally brought her back from the dead. Since 27cc's is so little, this might be easier for both of you than subjecting her to injections. I hope she feels better soon!

 

[Attack Chicken]

Actually 27 ccs is alot. To much to take by beak. I just get the syringes and needles at Tractor Supply. For my girl I did 12 ccs in the morning and then the last bit in the afternoon sometime. I'll give a call to my vet tomorrow to see what the fluid were called. I remember it saying something about electrolytes and vits being in it.

 

[greenkjb]

27 cc's is a little over 5 teaspoons. It was not a problem at all for me to get the about that much in the beak in my sick girl. Anyways, good luck with the rehydration! I hope it works.

 

[Attack Chicken]

I know my girl wouldn't take more than 5 ccs by beak. Then she just slung it everywhere

thats why I had to resort to the injections.