3 sick hens this morning

[casportpony]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/805728/go-team-tube-feeding

-Kathy

 

[lou-q]

Well, we are happy to report that two are back to eating dry food and drinking. The third one pecked at the food and ate quite a bit of the liquified food. I think that by latter today they'll be all eating on their own.
Thanks for the help and support,
Lou

 

[lou-q]

All is well at the ranch.
The three hens made it and they are back to acting like chickens.
The only thing that I found that might have gotten them sick were some mushrooms in the horse manuer pile. So now every morning before they go out we will check the manuer pile for mushrooms.
Thanks to everyone for their suggestions.
Lou

 

[ryanhodapp]

So glad to hear they are better.

For the next time.....
Read the info on tube feeding and have supplies on hand, especially since you can't get to feed store quickly. My avian vet also said that you can take chicken food and put it in coffee grinder, food processor. I used blender but takes longer and was a bit thick.
The Katee baby bird food is a better consistency.
I tube fed a long time this past summer with lots of help from Kathy.
IT Is NOT HARD

Sick chickens need 85 degree temps and no stress.
Keep,their hospital bed clean. ,
They have to get enough fluids
45ml per pound everyday.
Gatorade or electrolytes on hand

Now that they are looking better you might want to give them some probiotics.

Take care
Marlene

 

[lou-q]

Thanks Marlene,
We have raised many baby birds. We use to breed scarlet and blue and gold macaws and have hand raised many other types of parrots.
They usually are aggresive eaters and they take it very well. We didn't have any long tip syringes and non of the drugs stores around here
carried them.
We still have several macaws and they eat the same ground up KT pellets that we fed them when they were babies.
Before KT started selling parrot pellets we tested and used their pellets from unmarked bags for two years.
We used ground up KT with a little ground up Layena mixed with yougurt, Gatorade and molasses for the sick hens and it worked.
I just wish I knew for sure what they got into. The other older hen hangs out with our moscovy duck and not with the young ones and she didn,t get sick.
Next time I go to the mainland I'll buy what I need in case it happens again.
We hve had chickens on this property for over 35 years and never anything like this..
Happy New Year,
Lou

 

[lou-q]

Hi,
I'm happy to report that all three of our hens survived and they just started laying again.
Thanks to everyone that helped me along. We were really worried we were going to loose them and they were just six month old.
Thanks again,
Lou