Hen with vent problem and limp! *Pictures Please help!

Lacy Blues said:

You could try giving her cheese. It's high in fat but has lots of protein too. If they get diarrhea, cheese helps a lot... as do the blueberries. I found out this week that blueberries are anti-diarrheal! That came in handy because I had one of my better hens get sick this week. Extremely pale (scarily so!) lethargic, no appetite for food, only water, green watery diarrhea. I was so afraid I was going to lose her. She was fine last week and then withing the span of 1.5 to 2 days got got deathly ill.

This is what I did for her: Mar 5: She wouldn't eat, not even hard-boiled egg yolk at first (which tells you exactly how sick she was) so I brought her indoors in a big tupperware tub with a wire top and clipped on a small wattage light bulb for warmth. Rather than pump her full of antibiotics, I force fed her some yogurt.

Mar 6: She ate her egg yolk in the morning but by 4:30 she hadn't eaten anything else. Fed her more yogurt.

Mar 7: More yogurt in the morning. ... then I thought, well, she won't eat so I need to do something to her water so she's actually getting some benefits. I had a protein drink mix that I mixed into her water to at least get some nutrition into her. This recommended 1 scoop to 1 cup water. Her little waterer holds about 1/2 cup and I mixed a whole scoop into it. Then in the afternoon, she started eating her egg yolks. She drank about 1/2 of her protein drink the first night. Gave her more yogurt before bed.

Mar 8: More yogurt. Then I remembered that alfalfa is an appetite stimulant so I made her some alfalfa tea (1 tsp dried alfalfa to 2 cups water and let it steep for about 30 min). I mixed half water w/half alfalfa tea to make her protein drink the next day and also stirred in some yogurt. For food, just hoping she'd be interested, I gave her a chopped hard-boiled egg with some shredded cheese (to slow down her digestion and boost her protein). That evening I noticed she had picked out the cheese and eaten it, so I brought her some more. She ate that too. I mixed in some of her normal food to see if she would eat that yet. She just picked out her favorite parts. I checked on her at 11pm to find that all of her cheese and protein drink were gone. Gave her more cheese and more protein drink. I brought her a spoonful of yogurt and put it in her dish. She wolfed it down! Then, thinking about all the cheese she had been eating, I brought her a spoonful of applesauce. I didn't want her to now become constipated! I gave her half of the spoonful and put the rest into her water. The natural pectins in apples feed the beneficial bacteria in yogurt. Before I went to bed I noticed she looked a lot better. Her color was returning and she was more alert.

Mar 9: More yogurt and applesauce. I offered a hard boiled egg chopped and she picked out the whites and some cheese. Keeping tabs on her droppings, one out of 3 that morning had a bit more substance than the others prior to it. She didn't eat much this day. In the evening her lay pellets and egg yolks were still in her dish so I finally mixed some yogurt all through it and left it for her to eat by morning, hopefully. I looked up diarrhea to see what foods curb it and I found that blueberries do. So, I added about 4 blueberries, cut up, into her food mixture. She was curious (which is always good) and decided to try them. Well, she liked them well enough to eat several pieces.

Mar 10: When I got up, her food cup was empty and her protein drink was gone! So I gave her more of all of the above, plus a spoon of both yogurt and applesauce. She started eating right away. More in the afternoon and by bedtime, it was almost all gone. When it was lights out, I put more cheese and a spoonful of yogurt in her dish so she'd have it early in the morning. I got up this morning to an empty dish!

I can't tell you how thrilled I am with her progress. Her color is fantastic, she is no longer cold (or afraid of me for that matter), she is very alert and she chats with me when I come into the room.

I will continue this treatment until her droppings are absolutely normal. They're still wet, she had one this morning that was nearly perfect. I didn't add blueberries to her food this morning and this afternoon when I returned home from the house of God, her droppings were quite wet again. Blueberries to the rescue. We'll see but I have very very high hopes that she will pull through.

One other thing I should mention that I really don't believe did any good and one other that I believe did help, but in reciting all that I did, I should say it all. I only had Tylan as an antibiotic and though she showed no signs of respiratory trouble, I was desperate. I only have Tylan 200 so I only gave her 1/4 cc at a time. Mar 6 and 7, I gave one shot each evening. Mar 8, I gave her shots both morning and evening. Since then, she hasn't had any shots. It could have been the alfalfa tea.

The other thing mentioned was prayer. I definitely have been praying for her. Psalm 138:8 says that the Lord will perfect that which concerneth me. In other words, the things that I am concerned about, he will take care of. I believe this with all my heart and rely heavily upon him for without my chickens, I wouldn't know what to do with myself. I dearly love them all!

Now, this girl is not out of the woods yet, but she's on her way.

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