Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Look What I Did!



What a surprise, the German Import hen which has slight lower abdominal breathing laid an egg!!

Surprising but not really surprising as part of the new treatment is feeding conditioning food and in my enthusiasm I have been refilling her dish twice a day, so what do you get when you push....... heat eggs. Typically, heat eggs are darker in color and laid off the perch and infertile even when a male is in the cage!

Update on treatment:

I found the baytril was more effective when given in the mouth but still a slight hint of lower abdominal breathing on Mario and the previously gasping hen pictured above. Mario did get his song volume back and typically starts singing in the morning before I can count to three. Yet, I have learned that even with slight symptoms if I take them off the baytril and even though they look so good when I take them off, they develop symptoms in a few hours.

So knowing that if I keep up the baytril treatment I am only controlling and not getting totally rid of it, a week ago I took the plunge and change the treatment protocol. I am now using an antibiotic cocktail: 500 ml of water, 1/8 teaspoon Doxycycline 20%, 2 ml of megamix, 1/4 teaspoon tylan, 1/2 teaspoon sugar. The doxycycline and megamix are from ladygouldianfinch.com. (Should I get imported birds next year, I will put them on this right away as a precaution.)

This could take up to a month if if happens to be chlamydia. So far it looks good and I now just see a hint of lower abdominal breathing. Some have ask about the birds droppings. They are normal, symptoms are lower abdominal breathing and if not treated gasping and death. Five of the ten remain and look really good.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Linda,
Good to see you blogging again.
Your comments and advice were missed!

How is your breeding season progressing? How are your Borders doing?

Look forward to your updates.