Easter Egger wobbly, almost drunk looking.

[rebrascora]

After holding her for several minutes, I am itchy as heck.

Sounds like you might need some louse powder! It is quite common for sick chickens to become infested because they are too poorly to dust bath and preen as they normally would. Many people seem to think these pests can be the cause of death because they see heavy infestations on very sick birds, but in my experience there is usually an underlying illness that allows them to flourish and it is the illness that is the actual cause but people usually don't get a necropsy to find out and just assume it is the parasites.

Can you take some video footage of her and download it to You Tube or Vimeo and post a link to it, so we can see how she moves? I'm leaning towards possibly Marek's disease, but seeing her would give more idea.

 

[CatCohen]

UPDATE - She is doing better and better although still somewhat uncoordinated. She is gaining weight. I dropper feed her tertracycline as well as dropper feed a combination of fruit and vegetable capsules and some nutritional yeast. In addition, I have been hand feeding fruits and veggies and she has been eating more and more feed on her own. I started out by grinding the feed and hand feeding mush. But now she eats regular feed.

At night she is in a separate box outside with a heat lamp on her. It gets into the 50s (F) at night, but this weekend it will get down to the 30s, so I want her to stay warm. In the day we have a small run for her with food and water. The other 3 hens can come up to the cage and have been really mean! This morning we let her run around the yard. The others pecked at her and it appears she may now be blind in one eye due to whatever it is she had. She remains uncoordinated especially when she runs away from the others and still trips and flips. But if she walks slowly, without pressure from being chased, she is just fine.

Looking for final ideas on what it might be/have been (it has been 2 weeks since she showed symptoms. If it was a stroke can she fully recover? Any tips to introduce her back to the flock of 3. Plus we are taking 2 new hens from someone who is moving.

Any other thoughts/advice/ideas? Oh also, I have been doing physical therapy with her.

 

[rebrascora]

As I said above, some video footage of her might be helpful, but what you describe still suggests Marek's to me, especially losing coordination when she is put under pressure. I have seen that quite a few times in my flock. It is a very positive sign that she can coordinate when not stressed though and it is really important to ensure that she is not exposed to further stress as that can trigger a secondary and possibly fatal attack of the disease. It may be that you have a special needs chicken for the duration of her life. If you are introducing 2 new chickens be aware that if she has Marek's, you are putting them at risk. If you decide to go ahead still, would it be possible to get them one at a time and put the new bird in with her. A lone chicken that is on her turf will give her an advantage and the new healthier hen a disadvantage.... it might be that once they sort out the pecking order that they will pall up and it may help your girl reintegrate. I had that happen with one of my Marek's sick birds that I was caring for in my infirmary. She had been there for a couple of weeks when I added a bird that had been getting bullied in the main flock. The sick bird had been nest bound for some time but she took offence to sharing her living space with a stranger and they had a heck of a battle which was pretty ugly to watch. After that they became firm friends and it was one of the turning points in the sick girls recovery. It is however a risk because the situation will cause stress and you have to be quite brave and not intervene unless it gets too bad.

 

[CatCohen]

Had her out in the yard today, everyone together. Her sisters stopped being nasty @$$holes and Flopsy was protecting her. Seems all is getting right with the world.

As for the 2 new comers, they come together. Someone in one of my FB groups is moving and needs to re-home his girls. They understand the risks and also know what I did to save my girl over the last 2 weeks.