Lillian McCall

Well, a spontaneous healing is rare, so you really have to make sure you’re not falling prey to wishful thinking. How is her vent area? About monitoring her, it’s continuously/forever, there’s no getting out of it I’m afraid. They can’t speak and being in captivity they depend on the keeper completely. We have to watch them closely, everyday, and notice everything.

I have a strong recommendation to make, for everyone who has chickens or quails etc, but first, why. Because unfortunately the internet is full of useless chatter and also purely bad information- for example unrefined coconut oil is supposed to fight the yeast, but in reality it’s actually too weak and does nothing (tried it). Also because sour crop is so common and everyone runs into it sooner or later. It’s a good idea then to copy and paste the content of this article

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/how-to-treat-sour-crop-and-impacted-crop-and-how-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

and have it handy in your files, because everything including the treatment method is explained very clearly, and such useful accurate info is not easy to find, it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack. Good luck!

It’s very good that she is lively! A yeast infection in the beginning is, after all, just a (major) annoyance. Yet if these hens are neglected, they can die from it. You didn’t mention her age.    

The ‘over the internet’ diagnosis of sour crop is correct, because this is what makes the liquid accumulate in the crop. To fight the yeast naturally, she needs probiotic help- plain active yogurt (no sugar!) like I mentioned. Boiled egg for protein. I forgot raw apple cider vinegar. In order for it to have live cultures, it has to be raw, or unpasteurized (another term), dosage 1 tablespoon to a gallon of water.  
https://poultrydvm.com/condition/candidiasis

In a most worrisome way (for myself), I also forgot to mention my third case of sour crop, in an old rooster. I was already treating him for something else, so for his sour crop I tried fresh pomegranate juice and it worked. I simply bought a pomegranate and made a little fresh juice at a time and wet his feed with it.

If you take her to the vet, he’ll prescribe Nystatin. https://poultrydvm.com/cases/spike

But you can treat her at home with miconazole, the thing you don’t need a prescription for. This is an excellent article explaining how: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/how-to-treat-sour-crop-and-impacted-crop-and-how-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

Please look at the links. I don't know what's going on with the poultrydvm links, the addresses are correct.  Hope this helps!

Hi Allen. Welcome to permies!
If she “vomited up a thin watery liquid”, then for sure she has ‘sour crop’. Sour crop is a yeast (Candida) infection of the crop. It can be treated easily.

About the “runny brownish-yellow discharge”, this one is called ‘vent gleet’ and can be caused by many things- bacterial infection, yeast infection of the cloaca, or (rarely) parasites. A fecal test would pinpoint the cause of the discharge. But you said something very relevant, you “noticed a foul odor”. How far away was she when you noticed the smell? Because the difference between a discharge caused by bacterial infection and a discharge caused by an yeast infection is: the yeast infection really makes the bird stink. In a closed room, the smell is noticeable when you enter the room. In the open air, you know when you pick her up.

Conclusion: very likely she has a systemic yeast (Candida) infection, um, at both ends. How old is she? I had my first sour crop in a young hen who overindulged in mashed potatoes. The second was in an old hen, nothing specific about what she had eaten. My only Candida vent gleet was in a middle aged hen who had been suffering from salpingitis for a few days.

Treatment: can be treated at home with over the counter antifungal cream, like something containing MICONAZOLE. I’d recommend you duckduckgo or google ‘sour crop’ a little bit, to familiarize yourself with it, finding out the potential causes, etc. For the ‘vent gleet’, she needs a good local bath and an application of miconazole cream around the vent and a little inside the vent, daily, for 2 or 3 days. For the sour crop, a question, is she still eating? She must be fed only things that don’t encourage the yeast, like plain active yogurt (no sugar!), maybe some cucumber, things like that, very little feed or no feed at all. And then wait a little and see if she gets better. But if her crop is very swollen and puffy, and she stopped eating, then we should give her some miconazole cream in her beak too.
Is she still eating?    

Lary, there’s something you could give your goat to make the transition to her new home easy. It’s the great homeopathic remedy for shock Aconitum napellus (Aconite for short). For example, people who do wildlife rehabilitation often give Aconite first to a wild animal brought into rehabilitation since it is in shock and terrified from being captured and handled by humans. Farmers give it after a predator attack or even harassment. A long time ago, a hawk harassed my birds for a long time trying to get to them, it didn’t succeed because we keep them very well protected, but it did succeed to scare them out of their wits. They wouldn’t come out of hiding for hours afterwards. I wish I would’ve had this on hand then.

Again-  Aconitum napellus is extremely useful for severe shock, especially shock from fright or accident. Used for transportation, when an animal changes owners and finds itself in new surroundings, used for fear of vet visits.

Link to the animal rehabilitation article: https://www.ewildagain.org/homeopathic-first-aid-tips-wildlife

Holistic veterinarian on Aconitum napellus: https://drdeeblanco.com/blogs/news/homeopathy-for-pet-emergencies-aconite-for-fear-shock-anxiety

Newborn goat saved by Aconite: https://joettecalabrese.com/blog/a-mother-her-kids-and-aconite/

Interestingly, one of the uses for humans is for nighttime panic.

If you’d like to get it for her, let’s talk about the dosage and also what else is Aconite good for (respiratory infections caused by exposure to cold dry winds).

Well, her feet look exactly like gouty feet + you confirmed that she’s been fed long term exactly what causes gouty feet, namely excessive calcium. This is a known “cause and effect”. Because since she started eating layer feed, she didn’t produce one egg/day.

Also, I saw this before, having similar conversations (not here) with people. A lot of us keep chickens as pets. The hens are not culled after 2 or 3 years like the livestock hens are culled, they’re allowed to get old. Being old, they lay less and less, maybe just once a week. Such a hen is still ‘a layer’, so the owner innocently, in good faith, feeds her ‘layer feed’. The hen develops gouty feet, like in the pictures at poultrydvm. I spoke with a few people like that… It’s the fault of the feed companies, obviously, for not labeling properly. People are very upset when they understand that their hen’s pain and suffering could’ve been easily avoided.

The layer pellets only cause issues for the hens who do NOT lay everyday, the daily layers really need all that calcium. Your questions are very interesting. If there would be too much calcium from natural sources, the first worrisome thing would be not getting enough iron, because 1- the foods rich in calcium are generally low in iron and 2- calcium and iron compete for absorption at the gut level. Also, hmm, wouldn’t they lose their appetite for something before that something became ‘dangerous’?

The other main cause of gout is too much protein. I knew about soldier fly larvae that they are a prime source of protein. Could the chickens be eating so many of them, and over long periods of time?

The thin shells can be caused by many many things, for example my hen had this from salpingitis. Let me recommend again the site poultrydvm.com. If you search by symptom “Egg shell(s), thin”, you’ll get a big list of potential causes, a real horror fest. But DON’T PANIC. The body can heal itself with proper nutrition, so by improving their diet, their health will be improved. Because looking at their menu “layer pellets, cracked corn, sunflower seeds, black soldier fly larvae (dehydrated), and whey (from homemade yogurt)”, the lack of phytochemicals immediately stands out. They don’t get greens, fruits, veggies? Phytochemicals are the health giving compounds in fruits & veggies; birds being omnivores like us really need them. They are not “treats” as the propaganda says, they are essential. Example of phytochemicals (they are also called phytonutrients): beta-carotene (in orange and green leafy vegetables), carotenoids (in pumpkin, carrots and bell peppers), capsaicin (in hot peppers, birds can’t taste the hotness), resveratrol (in the skin of grapes, blueberries, raspberries, mulberries), etc etc. If they rarely (or never) get to eat this kind of things, they can’t stay very healthy. If they’re allowed out to forage, that helps, but it’s not guaranteed to be enough, it all depends on where they forage. But the truth is that foraging is a death sentence. Hawks will appear out of nowhere, or a dog that escaped his invisible fence… We have a terrible hawk problem here so we have serious netting on top of the birds.

Hi Yeka, we spoke on the parasites thread. I was very happy when you answered so quickly. As you were saying, they are fed layer pellets, well, here we have the cause of Muffy’s remaining problem and we also have the solution.

Looking at all the pictures, it does seem like Muffy had two different things going on with her feet: not only infection, but also articular gout. Now the infection is gone, but the gout is still there. If you do a search for “hen feet gout”, you’ll see many examples. Now it gets interesting, because one of the main causes of articular gout in chickens is too much calcium in their diet, and too much calcium is exactly what most of them get in their layer pellets. How can this be? The problem is the fact that the layer type feed is formulated for those chickens who lay DAILY and it has four times the amount of calcium of the ‘for everyone’ or ‘all-flock’ feed. The feed companies should put a big warning on their layer feed bags, something like “Dear customer, if your hen is not a daily layer, don’t feed this to her. If you do feed this to someone who doesn’t lay 365 eggs/year, that someone is going to develop articular gout in her poor feet.” (Getting snarky is the way I maintain my sanity.) Let’s look at the math, it’s very convincing. So a non-layer like a rooster needs one quarter of the calcium needed by the daily layer, the conclusion is that 25% is for general body maintenance. So 75% of the calcium in the layer feed is for egg laying needs. What if my hen lays around 120 eggs/year, then for eggs she’ll just need one third of 75%. 25% for general body maintenance + 25% for eggs = 50%. Wow she only needs 50% of the calcium in layer feed. A hen laying one day out of three gets twice as much calcium than she needs, a rooster gets four times. That’s very high toxicity. They are getting slowly poisoned, but… nobody cares about our chickens, except us, of course.

Gout wisdom here   https://poultrydvm.com/condition/gout

Yeka, please convince your friend to discontinue the layer pellets, they really did a number on poor Muffy and maybe not only on her. In another comment, I gave the example of a hen laying every other day, such a hen needs 25% + 37.5% of the calcium in layer feed, so the remaining 37.5% (more than a third!) is too much and toxic. ‘All-flock’ feed and a source of calcium offered separately is the way to go.

I think I have an idea about why she was so susceptible to these terrible infections, and I’ll be back soon, only now I’m drowning in raspberries here. It’s a freeze them or lose them battle against time.  



 

Roundworms. The general wisdom is that if one chicken has them, then the whole flock must have them. But in practice, I found out that this is not necessarily true. I kept many birds over the years, and I met a lot of health problems with them, but it was always just one suffering from something, even if that something was reputedly contagious. This actually makes sense, because they are all individuals, with different genetics, different personalities and places in their coop hierarchy, so with different levels of stress. Something else that varies is also what they get to eat, maybe the shy ones don’t eat as many of the scarce goodies. Anyway, I had only one with worms, and it was exactly the one who was also the most susceptible to scaly leg mites.

In this case, if the egg production is poorer than it should be for her breed and age, then I would do something. Not mainly to get eggs, but because not laying as she should is an indication of all not being well with her.

Actually, Yeka, I saw your other post recently about the hen Muffy, and was meaning to ask what you feed them as a staple and what extras they get, because it’s possible by the look of her feet that Muffy could have gout. We’ll talk about that in the other thread, but it’s relevant here too, what do you feed them?

About de-worming medication: pharma has quite a few products that paralyze or kill the worms, but the drawbacks are:
1. Even if they get rid of the worms present in the body, they don’t make the body unwelcoming to worms in the future. So the chicken(s) susceptible to worms will remain susceptible to worms.
2. Liver toxicity. This one happens because it’s difficult to dose and monitor everyone carefully. Some can get too much. Maybe there’s one who can’t tolerate even the correct dose, and tragically maybe that same one didn’t even need to be treated in the first place. Deaths and injuries can happen from de-worming gone wrong.
3. You have to throw out the eggs for a while.

Luckily, in homeopathy we have something just as strong as a pharma chemical, but with none of the drawbacks, and lol it’s not “too good to be true”. By the way, there’s a professional homeopath here on permies who started a thread last year, I’ve been meaning to contribute there with a little history about the events that led to the state of affairs of today, when so few people know and use homeopathy.

To get started, I suggest this short article by another professional homeopath, who gives a lot of free advice to the permies. This specific article deals with the treatment of roundworms. Even better to go through the comments too.
https://joettecalabrese.com/blog/what-you-cows-and-worms-have-in-common-cina/

My hen really needed to be treated so I ordered her homeopathic pills and waiting for them to arrive I gave her a little freshly minced garlic in her feed (daily, because it was an emergency, but just a little). The Allium family plants (meaning mainly onions and garlic to a lesser extent) are to be given sparingly and occasionally because in large quantities they give the birds hemolytic anemia. Anyway, this is what I read, and the problem is with the onions mainly. Garlic is so great that it’s tempting to give some daily, but because avian vets warn about hemolytic anemia, I usually add it just once or twice a week. Except for the worm emergency.  
 

‘Layer feed’ has 4 times the calcium of regular ‘feed’.
Alexis, it’s a bit unclear, you’ve been feeding them ‘organic layer feed’ or ‘organic feed’? Because ‘organic layer feed’ has 4 times the calcium of ‘organic feed’.

What is important to remember is the fact that ‘layer feed’ HAS TOO MUCH CALCIUM. On the other hand, ‘feed’ (usually called ‘all-flock feed’) HAS TOO LITTLE CALCIUM.

Why? Because ‘layer feed’ is formulated for hens who lay DAILY. The all-flock feed is formulated for flock members who don't lay at all (those too young to lay, those too old to lay, roosters). So... a quarter of the calcium in layer feed goes to general body maintenance and three quarters of the calcium goes to egg production needs, but it's meant for hens who lay everyday. So, a hen who lays every other day needs only half of that, so for her 37.5% of the calcium in her layer feed is poison. For the rooster 75% of the calcium in the layer feed is poison. With the micronutrients, we need to be careful- too little and we're dead (us and our animals), too much and we're just as dead. The body can adapt to some extent, by not absorbing all the extra, but receiving daily an exaggerated amount is an unrelenting assault... They develop gout in their feet, so many cases I've seen on the internet, the feet of older hens getting swollen and red, must be so painful too. The roosters just die extremely early.
The layer feed is very practical though for people who want to keep only hens of the specific breeds and age who actually do lay daily. But if your hens don’t lay everyday, layer feed is toxic to them.

All-flock feed being for non-layers, of course it has too little calcium for hens who lay. As everyone said, you'll need to make available, separately, a source of calcium for the layers. They'll take as much as they need. Their own eggshells are usually an excellent option, but if they’ve been on regular feed and no source of extra calcium, then oyster shells would give them a boost. Until now, were you giving them back their own eggshells?

Our young apricot tree did the same thing in the spring three years ago. The leaves appeared very late and only on two thirds of the branches. We decided to leave it alone hoping it will recover naturally and IT DID. The bare branches remained leafless all that summer but actually they were not dead. I’m glad we adopted the wait-and-see method and did not cut off any of the branches. Now the tree looks great, 100% in leaf. It is 6 years old, no apricots yet.
I hope your neighbor’s trees will recover too.

To clear up any misunderstandings, this is what is meant by Sulphur in homeopathy:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Sulphur+6c&ref=nb_sb_noss

The number at the end is very important. CAREFUL the only one appropriate for an animal with skin problems is SULPHUR 6c. But, as I mentioned before, there is a ‘bump in the road’ with homeopathy, because we don’t have ‘one size fits all treatments’ (like aspirin for a headache). So SULPHUR 6c will only be of benefit to the animals that have the following particularities (all the minutia and trivialities that are listed bellow are VERY important even if they seem ridiculous):

The animal seeks cool places in which to lie, the skin is red and hot, it often smells bad, the animal is seen to scratch frequently. Symptoms worsened by warmth and washing. The patient is worse from heat of any sort.
The animal is better by cold applications, in fresh air, and from lying on the right side.  

So if anyone recognizes their animal here, you have the prescription- it’s SULPHUR 6c, 2 times/day until you see improvement.  The dose (how many pills) is written on the vial.

This doctor (regular vet school + veterinary homeopathy school) tells you how to administer the medication and how to store it.
https://www.homeovet.net/treatment-instructions

Again, storage must be at room temperature NEVER in the fridge. If you live in the North like me, I recommend you wait a little until it gets warmer outside to order the meds, just to be sure they don’t degrade on the road. Storage should be in a dark place, but don’t put them in a linen closet if you use scented laundry detergent because strong scents will degrade them.

One more thing my friends- what if your dog is not like the one described above? There are other homeopathic medications for eczema, but in order to find out which one fits your animal, the particulars of the case are needed so please leave a comment.