Sick or possibly hurt chicken?

I have a problem with one of my australorp hens but I have no idea what's wrong with her. She has always been a bit slower but the past week or so she has been limping or shuffling around, lathargic and kind of tired. Her tail has been low but also kind of lop sided you can see that in some of the pictures below. She has a healthy apatite and I think she has been drinking allot of water. Her breath doesn't smell bad, but there is like a super super faint gurgle when she breathes, but it only seems to be there when she's a bit stressed other then that her breathing seems to be generally okay. She has sneezed a few times though. My first thought was that she hurt herself or something awhile ago but it seems like she has been a bit worse to I wanted to ask about it.

I went out and I checked all of my hens for mites or lacerations in their eyes and they all seems to be fine, I don't think it's Mareks but I tired to get pictures of her eyes so that you can confirm that because I haven't ever dealt with it before.

I took two videos of her walking so that you can see what I mean, to me it still looks like she hurt her hips or something and I thought that might be why she was holding her tail off the the side as a way to balence but I could be completely wrong. If anyone has any advice or knows what's going on please tell me I don't want to loose my girl.


Just to make sure I listed everything that's been going on with my flock to be sure, I wanted to mention that one of my older hens died just a few days ago. She was perfectly healthy apart from being a bit slow but she was nearly ten years old at the time so I assumed it was from old age because she was perficlty healthy in the morning. She was actually pretty feisty that morning but later in the evening I went out and she was dead on the lawn.

Then one of my other hens has been doing this thing where she puffs up and gets very low, she goes broody all the time and I assumed that was part of it but I want to be sure so I included a video of her as well. I'm mostly just scared because one of my chickens did just die recently so I want to be extra careful.



Any information or advice it welcomed please help me =\



Give me just one moment to upload the pictures, I'm new to this site so I have to figure it out xP

Okay here are the pictures I was finally able to post them! You can see how her tail is all lopsided, and then I included pictures of her legs and everything if that helps =\

Here is the video of my sick chicken, you can kind of see how she is walking. if I need to take another I absolutely can!


And here is the other one who goes broody, I'm assuming that's what's going on but I've never had a chicken do this so I want to be sure the two aren't related

Please does anyone know anything? I'm desperate, if you have any information

I'm sorry you are having trouble.
She's beautiful.
It's possible it could be a vitamin deficiency. How old is she?
The slight stiff walking makes me think vitamin B deficiency, the tail possibly wry tail which is generally considered a genetic defect, but if she is having trouble walking, then that could explain the off kilter tail.
Poultry vitamins can usually be found at the local feed store, look for one that has vitamin B, E and selenium.



http://www.tillysnest.com/2014/03/vitamin-deficiencies-in-backyard-chicks-html/
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/3508/importance-of-vitamins-in-poultry-production/

Oh my gosh thank you so much for your reply! I can't express how thankful I am, but okay she is just about two years old, she will be comming up on her second birthday around July 4th
I will look into that first thing in the morning, they may have some in town, but I may have to order it in! I'll get her on them as quick as possible and let you know if there is any improvement!
Since it would be a genetic thing I'm guessing there wouldn't be, but is there a way to help her out if it is wry tail? I haven't had a hen with that before so I figured I'd ask just to be sure.
Again thank you so much for taking the time to comment it means so much to me, I genuinely appreciate it!

Ivy,

Your birds are beautiful, I am not sure about the cause of your first hens problem, her gait does seem stiff on the right side but her eyes are bright and she doesn't have the droopy or puffy appearance I usually associate with a sick bird, a sprain/strain injury or bruise is always a possibility and as previously suggested I would supplement her with some vitamins to help give her a boost. There are many here with more experience in poultry aid than I have, so hopefully they will see your inquiry and chime in.

Now on the second hen....that is a look I am very familiar with! She is broody! She will probably be parked on a nest of her choice, which will of course be the most inconvenient one she could pick, within the next day or two. Many of my hens do that strut when broody, some even more extreme, they look like prickly basketballs! Lol

You can also use human B complex tablets (no iron) if the poultry vitamins are hard to find. Dissolve in water or crush it and add to a little food or a treat for her. Same thing for vitamin E and Selenium. Since she is 2yrs old, most likely not wry tail, so injury or deficiency would be my first thoughts.

fisherlady said:

Now on the second hen....that is a look I am very familiar with! She is broody! She will probably be parked on a nest of her choice, which will of course be the most inconvenient one she could pick, within the next day or two. Many of my hens do that strut when broody, some even more extreme, they look like prickly basketballs! Lol

Click to expand...

LOL, forgot about the other hen. She does look broody. I have a Buff Orpington that hasn't gone officially broody (sitting on nest) but she seems act like this just about every morning and other times of the day as well, screams her head off it you even look at her when she's laying her egg. When I open the coop in the morning she comes out puffed up and clucking, it's quite a site to see...my DH let them out one morning and said "she came out as big as a house, making all kinds of ruckus, what is wrong with her". Makes life interesting.

Thank you both so much for responding! I wanted to give it some time before I updated this, so sorry for the late reply!
after putting her on the vitamins and tablets and everything you suggested at first she seemed a bit better to me, but then that kind of went away after about a week. She has been about the same, I don't see her getting worse at least, and like you said fisherlady, she doesn't seem droopy or anything like that still!

Lol! Oh my gosh that's hysterical! Yeah my chickens useually just growl at you when you come in and they are nesting xD there are about two of them that do it. then the others you could sit on and they probably would just ignore you or want food lol.

Thanks for the update.