2 Yr old hen suddenly paralyzed - please help

[RaeRae2]

Background:

• 2 year old White Legorn/Production Red cross hen
• Never sick a day in her life. Hatched out here on the farm.
• Not Marecks vaccinated
• Lays super jumbo HUGE eggs 5-6 days per week - often double yolked, some times triple
• Free range bird I've been bringing into the coop in the evening/night to roost because of the extreme heat - coop is cooled to 72 degrees. Goes back outside in the morning
• Started noticing feather loss and extremely red skin all around her vent and belly maybe 6 months ago. Dusted her thoroughly several different times with louse/mite powder made for poultry. Dusted the roost pole where she sleeps too. She's free range so that's all I could dust.
• Has been losing some weight over the last year and getting thinner.

Yesterday she acted a little bit weird in that she was dusting excessively. And really burying down in the dirt even where it was kind of damp and wet (just had rain 2 days ago.) When I picked her up to put her in the coop for the night, she had wet heavy dirt just PACKED heavy in all her feathers.

Put her in the coop, seemed normal, roosted fine, no issues.

This morning - she's crumpled up in one corner gasping for air, eyes shut, can't move her legs. Using her wings to balance. She seems a bit sore in her back, if I try to touch her back, she flops her wings out to the sides.

No interest in food or water with electrolytes in it.

No other birds are showing any problems of any kind.

Any idea what I can do??? This is July 4th so the avian vet is closed today. I can't take her in until tomorrow. Please give me some ideas if you can. Thank you!

 

[RaeRae2]

Forgot to add - I could hear sort of a wet/gurlgly type noise coming from her vent this morning. I doubt this is an egg problem though because she layed yesterday morning perfectly fine. Big lovely egg - never had any problems laying eggs.

Are these signs of worms at all??

I did worm her back in the winter with Wazine and did a fecal sample at the vet which showed no worm eggs. At the time I only had 2 chickens so it was easy and cheap to do that. But that would have been maybe 4-5 months ago.

 

[RaeRae2]

No one has any ideas????

She laid an egg but it was very small for her - it was a normal "Large" sized egg and the shell was pretty rough and bumpy.

She also pooped the biggest poop I have ever seen in my life - literally the size of a small baked potato!

She ate bread and cat food today but isn't drinking.

Ideas??

 

[pdx2phx]

I hope your girl is ok....I don't really have any ideas about what it could be.

How's her breathing/eyes look? Could the gurgling be her breathing?
We get scorpions here, and have had numerous stings with our girls, which cause them to have breathing problems/paralysis and is usually fatal without Children's Benadryl. Any chance it's something like this?

Sorry I can't be more help....hopefully someone else has more insight!

 

[chickenlover237]

aww... i wish i could help but i am new to chickens and never had a problem like this before so couldn't be any help to you. Praying for your little girl!

 

[seminolewind]

Wasting over a year? Now gasping and can't move legs? One of my guesses would be Marek's. Have your birds been a closed group? (no one in except hatching eggs or hatchery day old chicks)

Maybe a terminal illness?

How much weight has she lost?

 

[RaeRae2]

I don't know if I would call it "wasting" but she has lost weight. She is not to the razor breastbone point, but is not the super fat meatloaf she used to be in her first year of life. She was still very active, free ranging, running, digging, chasing bugs, laying an egg 5 to 6 days a week, etc... Acting like her normal old super mean self, flogging cats, fighting with dogs, etc.... Then BAM. Just paralyzed, can't move, feet curled up.

And it happened inside the chicken house overnight. It is a VERY secure house - 4 solid, insulated walls, concrete floor, steel doors - absolutely no way a predator could get in. She was totally fine when I put her in there that night, then in the morning she was in a heap in the corner, unable to move.

I only had 2 chickens until 4 months ago when I got a batch of vaccinated chicks from McMurray.

But my two existing mature hens were never vaccinated. Both of them I hatched here on the farm. One of them is 7 years old now, and then this one who is now sick, is 2 years old.

No other chickens coming in. Just had the two for the longest time.

 

[seminolewind]

Okay, sounds like you have a closed group. So I think I would try vitamins, esp the B's, people have said that they had paralysis caused by lack of B vitamin.
I might think moldy food or moldy or bad stuff found somewhere, bug or snake bite, tumor somewhere, heat stroke. The gasping may mean some respiratory involve ment like aspiration. If I think of anymore ideas, I'll add them.

Sometimes we never know why they get sick and die. How bout treatment for coccidiosis?