Waiting out illness instead of culling...thoughts?

[Peas4Ducks]

So here I am, back on this topic. Gwyneth reverted back to being more lethargic, not eating and drinking. She lost a lot of weight, and was down to about 2.5lbs. I intervened this time, trying many of the things I did last time. I wormed her, and she's on corid now as a last change effort to save her.

She won't eat or drink on her own, so I resorted to tube feeding her. She does clear her crop each and every day, and has gained a little weight. But, she still mostly stands alone in a corner of the run, with her head and tail down, eyes closed. My efforts to tube feed here were to try and get her to eat/drink on her own. I have been tube feeding for about five days now, and she still hasn't gone to feeding herself.

I don't know what is wrong with her, but I'm starting to feel like I am only prolonging her life unnaturally. If left to herself, and I stop the tube feeding, she will pass away on her own from starvation and dehydration.

As before, she does take moments of her day to do some scratching and digging, acting like normal chicken. Sigh....decisions...decisions...I can't keep up the tube feeding forever.

You’ve put a lot of love and care into this chicken. It sounds like she’s just not very healthy in general, and at some point now or in the future it will be time to decide to let her go, even if she pulls through again this time. Only you can really decide when that is, though.

 

[vantain]

You're answer is in the quote above.
I've watched absolutely appalled when people post on the ER threads about sick hens when the tube feeders descend on the thread like locusts egging the reluctant on to tube feed, shove this drug, or that drug down the chicken, some will even offer to guide you through the process and at the end of they're gone, feeling very pleased with themselves no doubt because they think they've helped the OP.
My question is "Have they helped the chicken?"
When a creature and this includes humans, decide to stop eating and drinking it generally means they want to die. Human cancer patients in countries where assisted death is a criminal offence have to resort to doing exactly this when they've had enough because the medical proffesion will insist on trying to keep them alive.
What you can do as the chicken keeper is stop this long and painful process from happening. Chickens aren't stupid. They know if they don't eat and drink they will die.

I appreciate your reply. However, in my case, my chicken did stop eating and drinking on her own, but today, she is at the feeder on her own.

I have been tube feeding her for 10 days. I started out using baby bird formula, and moved to feeding her the normal Flock Raiser I give to all of the hens. It's been tedious, and I thought for sure this would be the last day I do this. But before I could go out there for the morning feeding, I checked the camera I have in the run, and there was Gwyneth, at the feeder, eating. She has refused her normal feed for over 10 days, but today, she was eating it freely.

I can't give up on this chicken just yet. She does seem to have a fighting spirit. And maybe today is just that..one day...and she will stop eating again. I don't know, and will see what happens.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

For me it depends on two factors… how much I like that individual chicken and how far gone they seem to be.

In the hot, wet, weather of Florida botulism is common as well as poisoning from dog fennel and salt bush. About ten percent of my free range birds develop some sort of poisoning from either eating/drinking out of a botulized puddle after a heavy rain, eating from the shallow water of my pond, or by eating dog fennel and salt bush. The symptoms look a lot like Mareks but can be traced back to their observed behaviors. When the symptoms appear the poisoning always takes them with two exceptions. Two birds have survived the poisoning after having severe symptoms. One of the survivors has been weakly ever since, while the other is as fit as a fiddle. All the rest have died. Both of the survivors were prized birds I didn’t want to lose.

I’m content letting the weak perish, as apparently most of my birds are immune and never have issues. I can’t remove the poisons from the enviroment, so where I can’t change the environment I have to let the chickens change and accept that those whose bodies can’t handle the toxins need to be removed from
the gene pool. When see the symptoms in a bird I don’t care about I go ahead and cull them. If its a prized bird, I wait to see if they become one of those odd survivors or not.

The hawks generally cull the sick birds I don’t. My last two bird of prey predations have been of cockerals that showed poisoning symptoms. They were both birds I wanted to keep so I let it play out.

 

[vantain]

Figured I should update this thread. Gwyneth, once again, got well. She has been back to eating on her own now for the past two weeks, and is steadily gaining her weight back.

She does seem to struggle more on the very cold days, so maybe the cold causes some old age discomfort. On warmer days, she is as feisty and bull headed as she would normally be.

 

[Farm Up North]

This is the toughest part about owning chickens, and I feel it's very much down to individual cases per chicken.

I have had chickens for 6 years now, and have encountered many different ailments. I generally gauge them by behavior. For instance, I had a pullet this year that developed some sort of leg issue. I tried to help for about 3 weeks to get her leg fixed (I suspect either slipped tendon or some sort of abnormality.) I knew it was time to give up when I went out one afternoon and saw her practically laying on her face trying to get comfortable and with an empty crop. Off to "The Stump" she went. She was one of the hardest mercies I've had to do, since other than the leg she was young and fiery.

On the other hand, one of my old ladies about a month ago was on the floor of the coop one morning when I opened the door with her tail and wings droopy. I checked her over and didn't find anything obviously wrong, so I thought maybe she was just succumbing to old age of some sort, and she probably wouldn't last the night. I set her up in a lower nesting box that night and decided that if she was alive the next morning I would reassess. She survived, and I decided to give her a small dropper full with Nutri-Drench and water for a couple days. I'd say on the fourth day, she was back up on the roost, and on the 7th day she was back in her "spot of power", pecking everyone's face again. I have no idea what she had, but she's the only one that I've had look that bad come back from her illness, or whatever it was.

I will note that if the chicken in question's comb starts to look dark purplish at all, I cull. It usually means (as far as I've noticed with my birds), that some internal organ is being affected and anything I do is most likely just going to prolong suffering.

One final thought...do you feed a layer feed to everyone? If you are and she isn't laying anymore, maybe she's getting too much calcium? I've noticed all of my birds have done better after switching to an all-flock with calcium on the side. No idea if this in any way helps your situation.

 

[vantain]

do you feed a layer feed to everyone? If you are and she isn't laying anymore, maybe she's getting too much calcium?

I only feed Purina Flock Raiser. There is oyster shell available as free choice, but I have never seen her eating any of that. She has not laid an egg in the last year. Her belly has never been swollen, so I don’t think she is laying internally, and she doesn’t spend time in the nests like she wants to lay an egg.

 

[vantain]

Just one last update on this thread. After my last post, Gwyneth continued to do well, and didn’t exhibit the issues I reported anymore. However, she did start having issues with one of her legs or hip. In late June, she started collapsing on the ground, as she couldn’t bear weight on her leg. She could still eat and drink, provided she was near those resources. The issue grew worse, to the point that she could no longer stand at all. When I picked her up, it sounded like a broken bone or something, and I wonder if she had weak bones that had become brittle.

Anyway, at just over four years old, I decided her quality of life was no longer there. She couldn’t stand anymore. I culled her.

She was the top hen, and it seemed like the others all missed her for a few days. Now her second in command has assumed the top hen role, and flock life goes on.

 

[springvalley123]

Just one last update on this thread. After my last post, Gwyneth continued to do well, and didn’t exhibit the issues I reported anymore. However, she did start having issues with one of her legs or hip. In late June, she started collapsing on the ground, as she couldn’t bear weight on her leg. She could still eat and drink, provided she was near those resources. The issue grew worse, to the point that she could no longer stand at all. When I picked her up, it sounded like a broken bone or something, and I wonder if she had weak bones that had become brittle.

Anyway, at just over four years old, I decided her quality of life was no longer there. She couldn’t stand anymore. I culled her.

She was the top hen, and it seemed like the others all missed her for a few days. Now her second in command has assumed the top hen role, and flock life goes on.

I'm sure it was hard, but you know you did the right thing.