Please, please, please look and read. I need HELP!!!! Desperately sick chicken :/

A friend of mine moved into a condo and asked me to take her 4 hens into my flock. We're pretty close and I know that her coops are just as clean as mine are [and her birds are as well cared for and loved as much as mine as well]

I took hers in and checked them out, all seemed to be in good order.

A few days later we noticed that one of her hens comb was sagging and a bit pale. She didn't have any other symptoms and was acting normal so we figured it was just the heat, and decided to add electrolytes to the water [since it's already wicked hot out right now]

The next day, her comb was saggier and shriveling, it was also pale in color. We gave her another visual inspection and found a few mites on her [we're talking 3-4, not an infestation by any means] As a pre-emptive measure I dusted the coop, chickens and their favorite dirt bath areas with DE. I also used the poultry protector spray in the coop area.

She was still eating and drinking, but seemed a bit slow, and sluggish, along with all of her other symptoms. There is no discharge or gurgling, nothing that would lead me to believe that it's URD or anything like that. To me, she was showing classic symptoms of anemia from the mites chewing on her. So we gave her some watermelon and scrambled egg yolks and shredded chicken [anything I could think of that I had in the house that would give her a nice dose of iron]

She wouldn't go into the coop last night, so I left her out. I don't really have the space to quarantine anywhere and I have parrots so there's no way in h.e.double hockey sticks that I was bringing her inside if this is something contagious.

I truly believed that this was a classic case of anemia caused by mites.

This morning she was out early, eating more watermelon and drinking. I thought that maybe she was on the mend. When I went to check on her at about 11am, she was struggling to breathe, throwing her head up and gasping. [I had checked the day before for an impacted crop....it's not that, her crop was pretty much empty]

I wormed the rest of the flock today as well...because better safe than sorry.

The girl who's chickens they are, asked me if I had medications....I was more than reluctant to treat something that we hadn't diagnosed yet, for fear that in the hens weakened immune system and with the stress of the move, it might just kill her

She called a vet who said .5cc penicillin 4x a day and see if she bounced back.

I was able to put her in a tub in my garage with a fan blowing towards her with fermented feed mash and electrolytes in her water.

When I gave her the penicillin, she immediately stood up and tried to move around, she hasn't laid back down since that dose at 1pm. She is still struggling to breathe and can't keep her eyes open. I'm terrified because I have no idea what the heck I'm battling against, whether it's going to kill my entire flock, or whether this is something entirely different [did the hen eat something she wasn't supposed to in the yard, etc etc etc]

I'm at a loss.

Do these symptoms sound familiar to anyone?

ANYTHING at all would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, I just read your post and i typically just read a magazine from the U.K about chickens, there was an article about a man who raised ducks and chickens and a one of them started to sag as you said but they began to stop eating and walking around. He called a vet and tried to treat it but it died a few days later. Autopsy results of the bird that died showed heart failure and they came to realize it was T.B. A few days later the man saw another hen sagging and stopped eating so he called the vet and they treated the bird at the earliest symptoms and the bird healed. the symptoms you describe sound the same as the one i read about in the magazine and your chicken may have the same, you need to keep a close eye on the chickens you kept her with because the disease comes out in their feces and spreads like that. I hope you manage to save your bird, and just so you know I am not saying this is definitely what's wrong with your bird it just sounds similar and thought I would let you know. Please let me know how it turns out for you

Holy cow....TB!!!

I sure hope it's not that. I'll definitely do some more research though. Thank you for your comment.

I hope everything works out and it's not T.B just keep a close eye on all your chickens and let me know what happens because I'm quite new to chicken keeping and I am learning, so any good findings you come across let me know

it is best to not mix flocks, they may both be healthy on their own ground but not immune to something on yours, and vice versa, They say you should keep them separate for 3 or more weeks then put 1 of your birds in with the new birds if no one gets sick you may be safe.
I had Mareks go through my flock even though I quarantined them for 6 weeks, once mixed with my flock they started dyeing.
I lost a bird about every 2 mo for a yr.

I hope you are able to find the problem and treat it

There's no way for me to quarantine. Though this isn't a mistake I'll make again in the future.

I did some more research and I'm wondering if the mites somehow made it into her respiratory system [I was reading that this happens sometimes]
I gave her another dose of penicillin and this time, she fought me [she didn't want to take it], which is a complete change from her first dose, where she kind of just sat there.

I'm hoping this is a good sign, because I'm at a complete loss right now.

The Penicillin dose should be 1/2 cc or ml ONCE a day for 4-5 days. 4 a day is too much
With mites, anemia is possible. The antibiotic is a good one and a good idea. She may have been stressed and caught something. I think I would separate her for now so you can measure how much she's eating and drinking. Vitamins in the water.

If she's not that old, I may think about Coccidiosis.

Thanks Seminole. She was well over a year and on medicated feed.

She passed away sometime last night. Very sad, but now comes the watching of the rest of the hens....Ugh. I'm crossing everything that it wasn't contagious. But now every comb looks pinker and every chicken looks lazy through my eyes...I'm stressing myself out.

Awww, I'm sorry.

I think medicated feed is only used until egg laying age.

im sorry to hear that, I hope the rest of your chickens are ok