New2chickchicks
In the Brooder
- Jun 20, 2016
- 43
- 8
- 44
Hi everyone, I have a 16 month old Dominique hen purchased from MPC last year at one day old. She was a perfectly healthy chick. I have a mixed flock of now 14 chickens, thry are in a 10×10 coop with about a 20 ft run, they free range everyday with the exception of when we are away. When she was a round 5 months old she somehow hurt her leg, she would not put weight on it and could not walk at all. My sister who is a very knowledgeable animal massage therapist checked her out and thought her leg was out of socket, she manipulated it back in place and Ellie spend about a month and a half inside with us and seemed a little better but still would not put full weight on her leg. One day I decided I was going to put her back out with the others because I would rather have her die living like a chicken than live the rest of her life in a box in my house. Once she was out with the others she made a pretty much full recovery, I say pretty much because I would still see her holding up that leg from time to time but she ran around and functioned just fine with the others. Ellie was always our most friendly hen but over the winter seemed to get less social, the past few months she has been off, always the last out of the coop and extremly friendly, whenever me or my daughter are outside she would seek us out, my daughter always grabbed a handful of something to feed her. Last week I picked her up and noticed she felt very light and extremely skinny, something was protruding from her chest, I thought maybe she had an impacted crop but it was her breastbone. Her beak was much longer than thr others and kind of hooked over so I thought she was having trouble eating so I trimmed it. Yesterday as i was getting ready to leave for the beach for the week, I made sure thr girls food and water was topped off until my sister comes on Wednesday to check them, Ellie came up to me, I went to pet her and she fell over. Her beak seemed to be glued shut with mud, she had a pale,dry looking face and comb and poop stuck to her bottom. I grabbed a dog crate and xpen and took her with me to the beach. When II was leaving i mixed a banana with chick crumble and she literally ate the entire drive here an hour and 20 minutes. Once I got here, I made her a bath and soaked all of the dried poop off her bottom. I took the banana out of her feed because it seemed to be sticking to her beak and drying and just gave her chick crumble and she continued to eat for another hour. Today she is eating and drinking really good, she has vitamins, electrolytes and probiotics in her water but I have no idea why she was starving to death, all of the chickens in the flock are totally fine. They are not bullies, we have some new babies and they are all fine with them and when the chickens are out free ranging she could go into the coop anytime by herself and eat??? We get non-gmo feed from a local farm and they are fed chicken scraps but nothing has changed in their diet. One thing I am not sure about is her egg laying. Only after someone asking me if she is still laying did I realize I have never once seen her in or even near a nest box. My husband is out getting gloves and some calcium tablets in case she happens to be egg bound but I am at a complete loss as to what caused all of this. I realize this is a long post and I thank you for taking th the time to read through it. Any help or advice you could offer would be greatly appreciated.
