HELP - sick chicken

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Hatching
Oct 16, 2015
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Cornwall, UK
My Amber Ranger is usually very friendly active and healthy but this morning she wouldn't come out of the coop. When she did eventually, she sat by the water container and drank a lot of water, much more than normal.

She's barely moving but still standing, not sitting. Her eyes are quite glazed and keep closing as if she's tired and when I tipped her up to inspect her vent, quite abit of water dripped out of her mouth.

Her tail is down turned and I thought she might be egg bound, although there was an egg very near to her that could have only been laid by her. It had also been pecked but not eaten.

Her vent looked fine and I have applied some liquid paraffin to it to aid egg bound. I felt her abdomen and it is quite hard, but it could be all the water she's drunk.

I will inspect her vent again. Any ideas what this might be?

I am going to isolate her from the others so I can assess her properly and check she is eating and drinking.

Any help would be very much appreciated.
 
Amber ranger, is that a meat chicken? You mention egg binding, if she's a meat chicken whose old enough to lay, depending on how restrictive her diet has been, she may have already "flipped." Even with the most restrictive diets, its only a matter of time before organ failure.
 
I'm sorry to say my poorly chicken passed away about an hour after I posted this message.

The breed Amber Ranger is a hybrid egg layer and she was only 9 months old.

I separated her from the rest of my flock. Placed her somewhere warm and safe with water and food. Added some poultry tonic to her water to try and give her a boost. Inspected her vent very gently to see if there was any blockage - no egg apparent. I gave her a warm water bath with a little olive oil in it as recommended on another site as her tail had dropped and she seemed to be trying to push something out. She was calm throughout the process. I placed her back in her isolation cage and she suddenly jumped around (having hardly moved at all all morning) and had was seemed to be a heart attack right in front of me.

I'm still stunned by it all and really none the wiser. The rest of my girls seem just fine thankfully but I feel sad I wasn't able to help one of my favourite girls.
 
That heart attack is what we refer to as "flip." Was she a very big bird? Did you by chance buy her at tractor supply? I know they label their red rangers as dual purpose birds but hybrids are normally bred specifically to grow big and fast for meat and they will literally eat themselves to death. Eventually they get so large, they start having circulation issues, leg issues and their organs will eventually fail.
 
She wasn't a big bird. Average really. I'm based in the UK and I purchased her from a known breeder who rears birds for domestic usage. My hen was only 9 months old. Having considered all her symptoms I think she was probably egg bound. Having drank nearly a litre of water very quickly, probably in order to try and help the blockage pass, I wonder if this might have put pressure on her other organs causing the flip.

I'm fairly new to keeping hens, this is my first flock and I'm learning all the time.
 
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