Mostly blind hen with other issues

[hennypenney]

I'm sorry you're in the same boat. Our blind-ish hen (we named her Ground Layer for obvious reasons) has always been able to find food, water, grit, and oyster shell, but I think when we enlarged our flock, so grew too timid to go after food and water for fear of being pecked. None of our birds are aggressive, but when she bumps into them they take it as an affront.

Sad to deal with. Thank you
Sorry for your issue also

 

[Gray Farms]

This is what I was thinking. If she's capable of regrowing her feathers and being a little less pathetic, we could potentially keep her healthy, but she might always be sad that she doesn't have chicken friends...

Hey, what if I got her a buff orpington as a friend and didn't keep them with the other hens? Aren't they supposed to be really nice birds?

A crested breed would be better in my opinion. As they have limited vision themselves. Ideally a Silkie or maybe a Polish for a companion. And a hen for sure of course, no unnecessary breeding. And their own coop, set up with blind birds in mind.

 

[TheResidentialFarm]

I had wanted to start a small bantam coop next spring specifically so I could have a couple Silkies to brood a few small clutches per year, but my experience with a very nice hen dying on day 21 has pumped the breaks on that desire. But if it would be a good situation for Ground Layer to live with a pair of Silkie hens, we could revisit it. I'm tired of death.

 

[hennypenney]

A crested breed would be better in my opinion. As they have limited vision themselves. Ideally a Silkie or maybe a Polish for a companion. And a hen for sure of course, no unnecessary breeding. And their own coop, set up with blind birds in mind.

I was thinking silkie also.

 

[fat marans]

Keep in mind that my buff orp is not nice to hens lower in the pecking order.

Of course, it (like all the others) will come running when I walk around with treats and tolerates being touched, but buff orpingtons do not seem to think people are chickens.

 

[bobbi-j]

I had wanted to start a small bantam coop next spring specifically so I could have a couple Silkies to brood a few small clutches per year, but my experience with a very nice hen dying on day 21 has pumped the breaks on that desire. But if it would be a good situation for Ground Layer to live with a pair of Silkie hens, we could revisit it. I'm tired of death.

I am guessing there was something else going on with your broody. Simply being broody should not have killed her. (If all or most broodies died on the nest, chickens would be hard to come by.) I've had chickens for over 30 years, and never had that happen. Could be she had a lice or mite problem, as broodies can be susceptible. I don't know if Silkies would be good company for your hen. I just want to encourage you not to give up on having a broody.

 

[Gray Farms]

One for sure a certain fact about having livestock is having deadstock. Nobody likes it but everybody has do deal with it.

 

[hennypenney]

That's the hard part

 

[TheResidentialFarm]

I'm sure there was something going on with my broody. I had started a thread to ask for ideas around day 9 because she was acting odd. As a result, I dusted her for mites, applied an ivermectin pour on (6 drops 10 days apart), and used a syringe to feed her vitamin water and egg yolk (also stripped and treated the nest and stopped using straw anywhere in the coop). She seemed to recover really well and was up off the nest every day dust bathing, eating, and getting fluffy/angry with other birds. Day 20, she started to breathe a little weird again (not nearly as bad as the first episode), so I gave her some vitamin water via syringe and a handful of mealworms in her nest though we had seen her up and about earlier in the day. Through her entire broody period, she was within 2 feet of her water and food.

My husband and I were deeply saddened when we found her lying dead next to the nest the next morning. He buried the hen with her eggs, as we don't have an incubator. We've both wondered if we should have tried to hatch them in a makeshift incubator, but we have to live with that now. We did not perform a necropsy.

This was a week and a half ago... so I'm just not really ready for more broody chickens yet.

 

[TheResidentialFarm]

I should also comment that I was unable to find any evidence of mites, though I realize they can be very difficult to confirm.