Giardia!!!

update again.

Brought Marylou inside, in a dark room and kept her partially covered with a dark cloth. She molted. Her tail feathers and shoulders are still scruffy, but the rest is all beautiful now. Will edit with a picture of beautiful girl later.
 
Sorry for not responding till now but our dog is sick & they are testing for Giardia which made me think if my chickens could get it. Apparently yes! I have noticed runny stools in my girls & I know my dog has a habit of eating the hard chicken poos. UGH! I have been using a product called Sovereign Silver brand Colloidal Silver when I know there is something going on. It is an Anti-Viral, Anti-bacterial, Anti-parasitic & Anti-Fungal. You can get it in store or online through Vitamin Shoppe. I use this brand so they don't get metal poisoned as with the more common brands as this one is manufactured with "Nano Technology" so the silver stays inside the molecule. Hope that helps...gotta go get some myself so I can begin treating my girls!
 
Updated link. It's now $3. I never sent a sample in as MaryLou returned to perfect health and I haven't seen the same symptoms since. I give them safeguard in the spring when they aren't molting (it causes new feathers to grow in awful ways... corkscrew, turned back, weak disintegrating shaft, vanes not releasing from the shaft--ugh. I didn't believe it til I saw it, poor girl.)
Link: http://www.birdsafestore.com/Giardia-Test-Kit_p_645.html
I don't know why this isn't posting as a link. You can copy and paste it.

My research so far (and I kept researching as I'm thinking about writing an article) is that the type of giardia that infects birds is not transmissible to mammals. They are now able to distinguish different variants of giardia using DNA, which is making it easier to determine which animals get infected by which giardia variant. Examples of mammal giardia from geese (which is being used to justify exterminating wild goose populations in urban areas) is now thought to be due to them being in water that is contaminated and getting it on their body or ingesting it from the water and passing it out in cyst form. It doesn't grow in their bodies, as far as I have been able to determine.

Hope that helps.
 
To my knowledge, it only affects the digestive system. I suppose it might be possible it could go up the reproductive tract. Haven't looked into that. Any feces on the eggs (common with diarrhea) could be contaminated.
 

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