Help please!

[Rortw1]

I have a hen roughly 3 years old but over the last few months has declined in her appetite. She started out having less than full crops with sometimes full and another times not so full and the sometimes nothing. About a month or so ago she stopped eating all together. She wouldn't touch any pellets but I can get her to eat some scrambled eggs. But nothing like the other girls would scarf down. Thinking she had cancer as we just had lost a bird of Merrick's thinking she had cancer as we just had lost a bird of Mareks o really didn't do much. I wasn't completely convinced it was cancer because she hadn't lost a lot of weight like our other girl did. She is still a 5 lb bird.

Just to try something and to rule out anything other going on I ran her on a course of baytril to see if it was bacterial. When that didn't work I proceeded to run a course of fenbendazole. She had some mild improvement with the fenben but it didn't last after a couple days of stopping the medication. As a last ditch effort to try something I went ahead and ran a course of corid. Miraculously after a couple days she seemed to be improving. After the corid was finished she started eating like I haven't seen or eat in months. She was gobbling down pellets eating crazy amounts of scrambled eggs and just eating anything she could. I had not seen this from her in many months. It was great to see a very exciting as I thought I found the holy Grail to fixing her. After about 10 days or so post corid her crop started to becoming less and less full again. Over the last 48 hours she has stopped eating and will barely touch scrambled egg. Today she's also been hiding in a bush and now is making a gurgling sound when standing. If I pick her up she seems to have labored breathing but the gurgling sound goes away. I if I sent her back down she seems to make that sound again. Over the last months or so she has been doing a lot of head flipping and swallowing. She's always making swallowing movements like something's coming up her throat. I really thought she was getting better and we found the fix. Now I'm thinking she's going to die in the next couple of days.

Not sure what else to do or what else I can try or what this might even be. I have started corid again as of yesterday evening. She just got her second dose an hour ago. Just to rule out gapeworm I concurrently dosed fenbendazole tonight. I want to thank everyone for reading this novel and hopefully receive some positive and helpful feedback. Thank you all for your time and consideration

 

[Eggcessive]

Sorry for your loss. Was Mareks confirmed by a necropsy or the state vet? Many times we cannot really know what is causing an illness like this until after death when a necropsy and testing is done. Mareks causes low white blood cell count and that can make them susceptible to any common disease that some chickens can fight off. Coccidiosis, respiratory diseases, etc are opportunistic with Mareks. Does she have any enlargement of her lower belly under her vent? Water belly/ascites can cause labored breathing. A respiratory disease can cause mucus in the sinus cavity that drains into the throat and causes repeated swallowing and head shaking. Virus, such as infectious bronchitis could cause that, or if you see any facial swelling, eye bubbles or foam, could be MG.

 

[Rortw1]

Sorry for your loss. Was Mareks confirmed by a necropsy or the state vet? Many times we cannot really know what is causing an illness like this until after death when a necropsy and testing is done. Mareks causes low white blood cell count and that can make them susceptible to any common disease that some chickens can fight off. Coccidiosis, respiratory diseases, etc are opportunistic with Mareks. Does she have any enlargement of her lower belly under her vent? Water belly/ascites can cause labored breathing. A respiratory disease can cause mucus in the sinus cavity that drains into the throat and causes repeated swallowing and head shaking. Virus, such as infectious bronchitis could cause that, or if you see any facial swelling, eye bubbles or foam, could be MG.

I have her quarantined in a crate in the garage with some baby food and water. I am not sure what else to do. She hid out in a bush all today and didn't come out. She was really lethargic a month ago and then snapped out of it and then came back after treatment. Maybe Mareks is taking its course and we knocked back an infection temporarily last time. Corid seemed to work but we made the mistake of not treating her again after a week. I will try to run a stool sample on her tomorrow with a local vet and see if we can find the culprit if parasites, or worms.