Sorry to hear about your chicken, but four years old is not very old to have stopped laying for one year. That means she’s stopped laying when she was less than three years old. A lot of times chickens get internal laying issues and that’s what does them in. It’s really hard to find out sometimes what is exactly wrong with a chicken until they pass and you get a necropsy done, unfortunately.Hi All,
Hoping someone has an idea as to what's wrong with Blanche. She's almost 4 years old. Hasn't laid an egg in a year and a half, but she was a good layer, so I'm letting her "retire" on her own time. ;-) She was always the fatter of the two BO's I've got...always the first at the treat-line, and quite pushy with the younger girls as they were growing up. She always had this blob of fat below her vent, about the size of a large egg, but it didn't seem to get bigger, so I figured it was just fat....it was there for a couple years. Well...it's gone now...along with every other ounce of fat on her body! I can feel her keel bone to about an inch in! It's startling! I hadn't noticed her losing weight cuz she's been fluffing herself up to look like a big ball. I thought it was cuz she's cold...it's been rainy and cool, and the other girls have been doing the same, but today I notice she's not moving around at all like the others...She's just standing around all fluffed up, looking like she's napping...closing her eyes a lot, and today she stopped coming over when I brought treats in, so I thought I'd see if I could catch her(she's normally very skittish) and see if I could see anything wrong...well...she stayed put and let me pick her up! That's when I discovered that she was so shockingly skinny under all that fluff! I set her back down after not finding a thing wrong with her, and immediately the black astralorps started picking on her trying to beat her up, so I separated her from the flock so they wouldn't kill her. She's very wobbly...I had to hold her on her feet for a few seconds so she wouldn't fall over when I set her down. She's now got her own food/water/treats/box...none of which she's touching. She's just standing and wobbling a little in one place closing her eyes. She didn't even react when I offered her a little cooked rice...her very FAVORITE treat, so I know she's not feeling good at all. I cant find any parasite issues, no problem with her feathers, feet, skin, beak, nostrils, ears, comb, eyes(other than she's closing them a lot to nap). Nothing's bleeding, nothing's broken. She's only been fluffing up like this for a couple of days, and my other BO was also...almost like they're trying to decide if they want to go broody(the other one is my broody mama...raised two sets of babies already). The other BO seems totally fine though...not any skinnier than normal, still clucks around talking to me and taking treats, scratching and interacting with the rest of the flock. I cant think of anything that may have triggered a problem for Blanche. I've been on a couple of trips, and they do seem to miss me when I'm gone, but the rest of the girls are fine, so? For the past month and a half, I've been giving them all a natural deworming herb formula that I got online (as directed)...it's got wormwood and a bunch of other herbs, so I dont think it's worms...and since they've all been eating it for so many weeks, I doubt it's that Now that I think of it, I dont think she's been too crazy for any treats in the last couple of days, but she did still come take a few bites of stuff each time I brought something, so not completely ignoring food til today. I dont know how much she's been eating the regular feed(it's freefeeding), or drinking...I haven't seen her go to either while I'm in the coop, but I often dont see the others eating/drinking either so I wasn't all that worried before today. She did have a little diarrhea today...whiteish, very thin. I couldn't see anything in it. Their normal bedding in the coop and nesting boxes is pine shavings. The run is dirt floor, which I rake up when it needs it. Their coop/run is covered(roof), and very "clean"...doesn't stink at all...most people that see them comment that they thought chicken coops were supposed to smell bad...mine doesn't at all., so it's probably not a cleanliness issue.
I dont intend to take her to the vet...we're under covid19 "lockdown" and honestly...she's a chicken...not gonna spend hundreds of dollars on her...but if there's something I can do to help her, I would like to make her feel better. Any ideas?
Thanks for the kind words, everyone!
