Emerald is improving

It’s been very slow but Emerald is beginning to look better. On Wednesday when we saw that her legs were trembling I knew that I had to get her to keep on eating absolutely anything that she would to keep her strength up.

I separate her every morning and give her the antibiotic powder sprinkled on two chopped grapes. Once she has had that I try her with a buffet of different things to tempt her. I have given her a dish of mash which she ignored, chopped grapes and tomato, she ate the grapes but not the tomato, chopped spinach, corn and sunflower hearts which she ate and scrambled egg which she ate only a little. I have tried her with probiotic yogurt which she ignored and tuna which she ate a little.

I asked on the forum, Down The Lane, if anyone had any experience of gape worm and I have been updating them and getting advice.

Someone suggested that I continue to give the flubenvet along with the antibiotic as she is still gaping. It was also suggested that if she has a sore throat the mash could be too gritty and the tomato too acidic so she is probably picking the things that are easiest on her throat.

It is always very difficult to be sure when diagnosing chickens but my guess is that it was gape worm because she was gaping and shaking her head but after three days of flubenvet she stopped shaking her head and hasn’t done it since and she brightened up. I think that the after effects of this have left her with a sore throat and she was struggling to eat and becoming weak.

I then started hand feeding her twice a day and she has started to show improvement. I separate her again in the afternoon and give her the flubenvet powder on two chopped grapes ( I started doing this yesterday) then tempt her with anything else she will eat.

She also has some sunflower hearts in the morning with the rest of the girls and some corn at bedtime with the rest of the girls.

On Thursday I went to a fishing tackle shop and got some maggots to help keep her protein up.

I separated her and gave her some maggots on her own so that she didn’t need to compete for them and gave the other girls some in their part of the run. I did the same thing today and she tucked into them.

Emerald tucking in to some maggots

I only give maggots when I feel there is a special need for them such as a crop problem or a need to build a girl up as in Emerald’s case.

She was spending all day on a perch, preening and dozing but for the last two days she has been moving about a lot more and has looked part of the flock again. She is also moving much more quickly and I think she is gaping less.

I am feeling much more positive now. When Amber had a swollen face and we thought that she had taken a peck to her face (during one of her spats with Honey) and it had perhaps got an infection, it took a month for her face to get back to normal. I feel that if it takes a month for Emeralds throat to heal then I need to keep hand feeding her during that time so that she doesn’t get weak. I hope that as her throat gets better she will resume eating the pellets.

It has now been ten days since I started the flubenvet and three days since I started the tylan.

I was really scared that I was going to lose her but I think we have turned a corner now and I am feeling much more optimistic.