What to do?

[Mamabrinkles]

I have a year and a half year old hen that since Spring just hasn't been right. She lost all of the color in her comb, stopped laying eggs, started always looking disheveled and fell from top hen to the bottom of the pecking order. At first I thought she was just molting, give her time. Well it has been several months now and no change. We have checked her for worms, checked her for mites, her vent is clear, her poop looks normal, she eats and drinks fine. We feed scratch and peck normally but have also given free access to feather fixer feed pellets. Her eyes are clear, there are no signs of anything weird on her skin and she doesn't have any wounds or anything like that. We have done rounds of probiotics, electrolytes, acv, and garlic and periods of time without anything extra just to see how she does. None of these have seemed to make a difference. It's been so long since she laid an egg that her bones have closed up to 1 finger apart. Last year she was the head hen and my best layer. Any ideas??? She isn't getting better but she also doesn't seems to be getting worse either.

 

[enola]

Have you wormed the flock lately?

 

[Mamabrinkles]

No we talked to a local chicken lady here that told us that we would be able to tell in their poop if they needed wormed. :-/. I've thought about it.

 

[enola]

There are only a couple of types of worms that you will see in poop. If you have never wormed your hens, you really need to think about doing it.

 

[Mamabrinkles]

I just went and got me some Rooster Booster wormer, hopefully it will do the trick. Thanks!

 

[enola]

How is your hen? Did you do a follow up worming?

 

[Mamabrinkles]

We did the Rooster Booster for a week and did not see any improvement. Yesterday we started a round of fenbendazole. Hopefully it will do the trick and we will start to see her get better. Thank you for checking in!

 

[enola]

The reason I asked is I noticed you used Rooster Booster. I see many posts on here that claim no luck with using it for a wormer. I hope she improves!

 

[Mamabrinkles]

We finished three days of fenbendazole yesterday. Lulu seems to be better, but I think it is too early to tell for the wormer? She certainly isn't 100% or even close, but she is walking around instead of hiding in the corner and is hanging out with her girls. I have been special feeding her once a day with feather booster topped with some kefir and egg yolk. I think she likes the special attention. Two days ago we sorted through her poo and saw little white dots, hopefully it's not tapeworm eggs :-/.

If we keep seeing them do you know how long we should wait before treating her with Valbazen?

 

[Mamabrinkles]

Seriously chickens, get your crap together ;-)

We still haven't decided on the Valbazen yet. Buuuut, we saw on very watery yellow weird looking poo, so just in case we are now treating for cocci. Figured it couldn't hurt.

I am unsure of Lulus progress, but she hasn't gotten any worse! We think there is just a tad bit more color in her completely yellow comb. She is hanging with her girls and walking around more. Yesterday when I gave them some worms, she actually ran to get them and fell down :-(. But hey, three days ago she wouldn't have even tried running.

We are still feeding her separately once a day with our magic mixture of feather fixer topped with kefir, egg yolk and some infant vitamins. She gorges herself on it so like all moms, I feel like if she eats she will get better, so it makes me happy.

I've tried raising my girls all organically and antibiotic free and now I'm just like, give them all the medicine!!!!