Thanks so much for your speedy reply and advice. I'm slow - Christmas prep, you know... The hen is still going strong with her bottom down. Not great downloading pictures, but working on it. Her abdomen is firm and reddened with slight swollen area a little smaller than my palm. She moves...
Ran across your message when looking for posture symptoms. My 4 year old black sex-link hen is also walking around with her bottom almost on the ground, but eating and moving around normally. Comb looks ok. How did yours turn out? I know it's been several years, but identical symptom.
What a sad thing. I'm a new chicken-herder this year, and have lost 3 of my silkies to snakes. Never dreamed this would be a problem. They have ambushed them, killed them, and then found them too big to swallow. (These are 3 month old chickens). I thought snakes would go for chicks or eggs...
Thanks for the advice. 1/2 inch it will be. And that should also slow the raccoons down. Hadn't thought about guineas. Do they get along with the chickens?
I'm a new chicken rancher, with 13 nearly 3-month-old chickens - 6 red hens and 7 silkies. We had chickens when I was a child, so I'm tuned into predator issues. I thought I had my coop very secure, but did not anticipate snakes small enough to get through one-inch chicken wire trying to eat...