What's Wrong? Diagnosing a sick animal

One of the worst things that happens as a farmer or an owner of animals, is to go out and notice an animal that is unwell. Trying to figure out what is wrong takes some serious Sherlock Holmes skills. We've recently dealt with this with two of our animals.

Problem #1: One morning I went to feed our animals and noticed our jack limping quite substantially and keeping weight off of his front leg. Of course my mind starts racing as to all the problems there could be but then I remind myself to take it a step at a time and not jump to the worst scenario possible. With the horrible weather we've had, its easy enough for an animal to trip on some icy snow chunks or have a build up of rocks or ice in their hoof.

I felt his leg to check for anything abnormal or for heat which would indicate an infection. When I knocked these off the list, I picked out his hoof but was unable to find anything lodged there. I concluded that he was most likely dealing with an abscess. We've had a few of these issues in the past and thankfully knew how to treat it. We have been having an unusually warm winter and the snow melted, leaving a very mushy, wet mess for about two months. Wet conditions is the perfect breeding grounds to create an abscess on the hoof. It is very painful and needs to be drained if possible. It can be compared to having a blood blister under your fingernail.

With my husband/farrier assisting, we got the hoof trimmed back but were unable to locate a specific abscess. We continued to treat it the same:

1. Scrape out and drain abscess.

2. Soak the hoof in warm water with epsom salts for 15-20 minutes. We mix the water and salt in an old IV bag that the vet gave us and then duct tape it around the leg. You can also use a bucket but we found the donkeys don't like to hold still with their hoof in the water.

1. Prepare boot and lather with abscess paste (purchased from the vet). A small diaper works great since it provides cushion and absorption. The boot is made with strips of duct tape.

2. Wrap the soaked hoof in the boot.

Generally, the abscess clears up after a few days and they are back to normal. In this specific case, we ended up having the vet come take a closer look and she found three abscesses in the same hoof. We continued the same treatment, changing out the boot every few days. It has now been a month and a half and he is almost back to normal!

Problem #2: This past week, I noticed one of our chickens keeping herself secluded in a corner, all hunched up. When I tossed in some scraps, she didn't come running- definitely not normal. I inspected her and noticed some caked droppings on her fluff and thought she might be dealing with a vent problem.

I looked up some things online and concluded that the first step would be giving her a bath and cleaning her up. When I went to pick her up, I felt that her crop was very squishy. That's probably not normal.

After getting her bathed and waiting for her to dry, I looked up problems with chicken crops. With her symptoms it looked like a case of sour crop. The thing I found tricky when diagnosing her problem was that the symptoms linked to several different issues. Vent gleet, sour crop, and impacted crop were the top three so I was just going to try my best to solve these problems. First of all she needed to be secluded so I set up a hospital room for her. Next, I took her off of all food and water for 12 hours. I massaged her crop every three hours in an attempt to dislodge the material that was stuck.

When I introduced food and water back in, I gave her some water with apple cider vinegar and then probiotics. For food, I gave her soft scrambled eggs and then yogurt mixed with a little of her pellets. After four days of this treatment, she is finally out with the rest of the flock! We are hoping things stay clear for her.

I think the biggest clue when diagnosing a sick animal is that you need to know what normal looks like. I feel like we have a manageable size farm and I know every animal and what their normal, happy, and healthy behavior looks like. When something starts to look a little off, I'm able to recognize it. It's also a good idea to know some basics like what an animal's temperature should be and how to take their temperature. We have a medical box in our closet that has bandages, pain meds, cut and wound cream, abscess materials, thermometer. It is nice to have some things on hand!

Sickness happens. Wounds happen. Animals will be animals and I'm glad I'm able to help them when it becomes a necessity!