Another sick feral

Well, she's continuing to improve, but there is an interesting new symptom. Our patient wouldn't eat this morning, so I had to give her 16 cc's of applesauce/formula mix. About 4 hours later, she came out of her box acting very alert and she flew around a bit tio explore. She started eating and drinking on her own immediately after that, and she ate and drank quite a bit as the day progressed. The interesting new symptom is that, after she eats 6 or 7 mouthsfull of something she does this strange thing where she stretches her neck out as high as it will go and swallows a bunch of times. Does anyone know what that means?

As evidence of her improving health, she has decided that my desk is her territory and she attacks my hands anytime I reach for anything. It's a good thing I have a wireless keyboard and mouse, otherwise I couldn't get any work done...

jimc2000 wrote:

Well, she's continuing to improve, but there is an interesting new symptom. Our patient wouldn't eat this morning, so I had to give her 16 cc's of applesauce/formula mix. About 4 hours later, she came out of her box acting very alert and she flew around a bit tio explore. She started eating and drinking on her own immediately after that, and she ate and drank quite a bit as the day progressed.

The interesting new symptom is that, after she eats 6 or 7 mouthsfull of something she does this strange thing where she stretches her neck out as high as it will go and swallows a bunch of times. Does anyone know what that means?

As evidence of her improving health, she has decided that my desk is her territory and she attacks my hands anytime I reach for anything. It's a good thing I have a wireless keyboard and mouse, otherwise I couldn't get any work done...

Good Morning Jim,
Many thanks for the update. I'm so glad to hear your little patient continues to improve.
With regard to the stretching of the neck while swallowing, I'm still thinking there is some kind obstruction. And canker is the first thing that comes to mind.

Jim...I agree with Cindy...canker, something stuck in her crop or yeast infection.

Matilda wrote:

Jim...I agree with Cindy...canker, something stuck in her crop or yeast infection.

Whatever it is, something is amiss.

jimc2000 wrote:

The interesting new symptom is that, after she eats 6 or 7 mouthsfull of something she does this strange thing where she stretches her neck out as high as it will go and swallows a bunch of times.

That's interesting as I have a bird that does that aswell.

She came to me a long time ago with neck twisting/stargazing symptoms which after supportive care disappeared completely. She's lived a very active life with no relapses until a few months ago.
She does seem to relapse slightly lately when she's due to lay eggs and under stress and has a slight loss of co-ordination for a short while.
I saw her do this swallowing thing like Jim described at one of these times after feeding, it was quite alarming as I thought she was choking. I picked her up and when I opened her mouth I found some maize stuck her throat, so thought that was a one off incident caused by that. The next day I saw it again straight after feeding. I couldn't see anything immediately obvious in her throat but gave her some Spartrix just in case. I haven't noticed it as much lately but I'm not always there when she feeds to spot it. I'd better keep an eye on her as I hadn't thought of yeast infection as a possible cause.

Janet

That's interesting, Janet.

Yes, I would definitely keep an eye on her when you can. For me, canker is always the first thought with a symptom of stretching out the neck in order to swallow, but there certainly can be other culprits.

One thing's for sure, this is not normal pigeon behavior.

Yeast, in the throat, is very uncomfortable...sore and itchy.

I don't remrmber who it was...but they had a young bird that just kept doing that yawning thing. Finally, the bird vomited a huge stiff leaf...like a laurel or bayberry...much too big to be in a little bird's crop.
Do you remember that, Cindy?Seems like it was someone in NYC.

Matilda wrote:

I don't remrmber who it was...but they had a young bird that just kept doing that yawning thing. Finally, the bird vomited a huge stiff leaf...like a laurel or bayberry...much too big to be in a little bird's crop.

Do you remember that, Cindy? Seems like it was someone in NYC.

Yes, I do remember the incident, but like you can't recall exactly who it was.

Well, our patient is still doing the neck-stretching-swallowing thing, although maybe a bit less frequently. She's a bit less fluffy most times and sometimes not fluffy at all.

She is continuing to eat and drink on her own. She's eating a lot. Probably the equivalwnt of about 20 to 25 ccs 3 times a day. She's still enamored with the Morningstar Farm vegetarian chicken substitute and it makes up about a third of each meal. The rest is cornbread. She's also drinking (and pooping) a lot of water.

She's not interested in seeds, waffles, normal bread, or anything else besides the Morningstar Farm and the cornbread.

I'm continuing with the 1/4 baytril tablet in the mornings and the 1/6 of a 250 mg Fishzole tablet at night. Here's the obligatory updated poop photo:



Does that tell us anything particularly enlightening?

Thr only thing the poop tells me is that she isn't getting nearly enough food.

Did you treat her for coccidia?

Matilda wrote:

Thr only thing the poop tells me is that she isn't getting nearly enough food.

Did you treat her for coccidia?

jimc2000 wrote:

Well, our patient is still doing the neck-stretching-swallowing thing, although maybe a bit less frequently. She's a bit less fluffy most times and sometimes not fluffy at all.

She is continuing to eat and drink on her own. She's eating a lot.

Probably the equivalwnt of about 20 to 25 ccs 3 times a day. She's still enamored with the Morningstar Farm vegetarian chicken substitute and it makes up about a third of each meal. The rest is cornbread. She's also drinking (and pooping) a lot of water.

She's not interested in seeds, waffles, normal bread, or anything else besides the Morningstar Farm and the cornbread.

Does that tell us anything particularly enlightening?

You mention she eats a lot.
Although her isn't the greatest looking, on a ball park figure, about how many does she produce in a given day?

How's she doing, Jim?

As far as eating and pooping, she has been eating about 1/3 or more of a 71 rgam Morningstar Farms chicken pattie every day along with roughly 1 and 1/2 to two 1-inch cubes of cornbread. Here's a picture of her droppings after about 7 or 8 hours of being awake in the morning:



It's kind of hard to tell where one poop ends and another begins, but I would estimate we have roughly 17 droppings in 7 or 8 hours.

Appreciate the update, Jim.
The droppings still aren't textbook, but they do look a little better, from what I can tell.

Did you reworm her?

Matilda wrote:

Did you treat her for coccidia?

Matilda wrote:

Did you reworm her?

Not yet -- she just finished her 10th day on baytril yesterday, and tonight will be her last flagyl (1/6 of 250 mg fishzole tablet.) Should I wait until she's done with the canker treatment before I give her more medicine? My plan was to give her a mediworm tablet for reworming and th treat her for possible coccidia with Appertex.

Which should I do when?

Since you already wormed her once, I would re-worm her and then wait a couple of days before treating her for coccidia.
Did the medistatin arrive yet? She should be getting that now.

Yes, I got the medistatin yesterday. Can you give me a schedule for when to give her how much of the medistatin, mediworm and appertex?

Jim...worm her tomorrow.
Start the medistatin as per the directions. I don't have a copy of the directions .
Let's see how see does does and then will decide on the coccidia drug.

Our patient seems to be having a relapse. Her poops were actually looking semi-normal on Saturday and Sunday, and she wasn't doing the stretching-her-necjk-swallowing thing much at all, but her papers thius morning looked alarmingly similar to before. It also looks like she threw up:




She's acting fairly alert and normal, but doesn't seem very interested in food. The only real change since Sunday is that I stopped giving her the Morningstar Farms chicken substitite after Charis pointed out that it was very high in sodium (she did tend to drink quite a bit after eating it.) I gave her some more this morning to see if she would eat it as eagerly as before, just on the off chance that maybe there is something wrong with her crop that was being helped by a high sodium content diet.

Jim...I still suspect a yeast infection but of course I' can't say for sure.
I would treat her for coccidia and continue with the medistatin for yeast. She could be just ready to turn the corner for the better. It's not unuisual to knock one thing down, only to have another emerge.
It's very frustrating, I know.

I'm so sorry to hear things seem to have taken a step backwards, Jim.
Positive thoughts continue for the little one.

Bless you both.

Jim...I don't know if you have seen this link.

http://www.auspigeonco.com.au/products/veterinary_medicines2.html