Sick araucana
I've got a sick 13 week old araucana pullet. We were at the vet's yesterday, and left $105.00 poorer still with a sick chicken and shaking my head. He prescribed an anti-fungal suspecting she had sour crop, but told me her prognosis was poor at best because of weight loss. I've been force feeding her with a syringe for two days now, and she's become somewhat receptive to it. Her weight was 1.69 lbs. at the vet, and we're making small gains with each feeding as I've increased the volume a bit, and the frequency of feedings. She's getting Pedialyte, grower crumbles & oatmeal ground up and made into a liquid "paste" that I can get into the syringe to feed her. When I leave her in her dog crate (I brought her inside and put her under a heat lamp), she's got free choice of crumbles which she does peck at altough not enthusiastically, and the pedialyte. Am I taking the best approach to her nutrition or am I missing something? I want to give it the best try I can, and what ever happens is to be, but thought maybe someone here could give me some more information than the vet did!
Try big fat mealworms from a pet store or bait shop. I had one baby peacock that was so sick I had to inject antibiotics, and the only thing that he would choke down were mealworms. He actually gained weight on this, although he could barely swallow them. The other stuff sounds great, giving your bird moisture and nutrition, but mealworms must taste like heaven to them.
Thanks for the response! She was so weak I think she just gave up on Friday afternoon, it was difficult to get her to take anything by mouth/beak ;) and she passed away Friday night. The vet suspected that she might have an underlying issue that could not be determined until an autopsy was done. I decided not to do that on this pullet since she's the only one that has shown signs of sickness.
Thank you again.