7 month old hen stopped eating

[branston]

One of my 7 month old Ameraucana mix hens isn't eating enough. I've been watching her over the last 2 weeks and she seems to just eat enough to survive? I brought her in the house 3 days ago because her wings were drooping and she was just standing there. I put electrolytes in her water one day and Sulmet the next. Also put her back on medicated chick crumbles as mine really don't seem to like the pellet laying mash. I'm syringe feeding her Lafeber's Nutritional support but she's very skinny. To look at her you wouldn't really think anything was wrong, bright eyes, no discharge or breathing problems but when I pick her up, I can feel every bone in her body! Any ideas anyone? Don't want to lose this hen

 

[klmclain1]

I assume you've checked her over thoroughly for mites/lice. At this point, I think I'd go ahead and worm her if there are no other symptoms. Watch the rest of your flock for any signs....

 

[branston]

Funny.......I was thinking exactly the same after posting this! Put a couple of drops of Ivermection on her tail end this morning. Will keep you posted......thanks for replying

 

[klmclain1]

Ivermectin is not broad-spectrum. Do you have Valbazen? Here is some great worming advice from dawg53..he's the guru!

As far as worming goes, there are many wormers to choose from. Worming depends on your environment where you live. If you live in a warm, wet area and the soil is moist most of the time, you might have to worm several times a year. If you live in cold, mountainous or desert area, you might only have to worm once a year or maybe even longer than that, it just depends.
Soil conditions are what you need to be concerned about, whether it's dry or moist. Due to my environment where I live, I worm once every 3 months, rotating wormers to prevent worm resistance to one particular wormer. I use Safeguard liquid goat wormer, Valbazen liquid cattle/sheep wormer and sometimes Zimectrin Gold equine wormer. Ivermectin due to its overuse in chickens as a miteacide has been been seeing large roundworm resistance in chickens. It will not kill cecal nor tapeworms. Ivermectin will not kill lice in chickens, only mites because they suck blood and chicken lice dont. Same for Eprinex. Wazine only gets rid of large roundworms. There are many types of worms that chickens can get. Therefore it's best to use a broad spectrum wormer to get rid of them.