Another mystery for the BC brain trust

[hennanny]

so we have this 1 yo Buff Hen who is sick. No real bad discharge just extremely weak and can not stand. ALREADY CHECKED FOR LEG MITES. The thing is we just had another die ( no symptoms just found her dead the next morning) but the common dominator is they both had been given some egg shells added to their "treats". She does have some loose slimy discharge but her vent is fine.

question? ideas? Thoughts?

 

[azygous]

The egg shell may or may not be responsible. It is advisable to bake the bacteria out of them before feeding back, but it's not a given that unbaked shells will make a chicken sick.

Other than that, there are no clues in your narrative that could help figure out what's wrong. In this case, we treat the symptoms.

Give her a cup of warm sugar water with one teaspoon of sugar dissolved in it. Take away her plain water for today. This will boost her glucose and it may help the leg weakness. If she responds and recovers her ability to stand and move around within the next few hours, that can add information to this mystery.

Since another hen has died, there may be an issue with bacteria or mold causing infection and lameness. Bacteria and mold found in compost can produce these symptoms. Do your chickens spend time digging in compost?

Weakness can be caused by starvation. Is this chicken bullied by the others? A timid chicken can be prevented from eating enough and eventually starves. It's important to observe the behavior of this chicken in relation to her flock to be sure bullying isn't the issue here.

If you can, try to find an antibiotic. It may be needed.

 

[hennanny]

we have her in the house in abox. We will give the sugar water a shot. wife also read to make the food into a mash which she did and it was gobbled up. Wife and I are doing our own research. Wife has a tendency to give too many treats such as Sunflower seeds and wondered to herself if she just is not "treating" them to death. I pointed out that is what she is doing to me and our Basset Hound so she maybe on to something lol

 

[hennanny]

Never mind...she died

 

[StinkyAcres]

Sorry for your losses. Were both hens Buff Orpingtons? I am seeing a pattern both in my own experience with the breed and here on BYC of Buffs suddenly dying of unknown causes. Would love to know if anyone has had a necropsy done in one of these cases.

 

[azygous]

Do you have a compost area the chickens dig in? Since two chickens have now died, you need to be concerned that the others may succumb to this. Over feeding can cause eventual death, but I suspect something pathological in this case.

Also, these chickens could have died of coccidiosis. Do you have any way, online or other farm supply source, to buy a coccidiostat?

 

[hennanny]

yes this is our 3 rd Hen loss, all Buffs in the last few months, last two in the last 3 weeks. Wife is going to cut her open here shortly.

 

[hennanny]

Do you have a compost area the chickens dig in? Since two chickens have now died, you need to be concerned that the others may succumb to this. Over feeding can cause eventual death, but I suspect something pathological in this case.

Also, these chickens could have died of coccidiosis. Do you have any way, online or other farm supply source, to buy a coccidiostat?

no they dont free Range we have too many Hawks learned that lesson the hard way, My Avatar is that of our Rooster that got killed by a Hawk so no to the Compost area. Yes we concerned about our last 3 Buffs. Wife pointed out that the 3 died where always the "Bully" and ate the most. . Yes we have a lot of Farm vets around us

 

[azygous]

You need to ask for a coccidiostat. The one we buy here in the north is Corid. Coccidia live in the soil and become over populated when it warms up and there is a lot of wet weather. These are parasites that chickens pick up from the ground, and once inside the chickens, the coccidia mature, have young, and continue to eat away at the intestinal lining.

They thrive on extracting vitamin B-1 from the chickens' intestines. A coccidiostat blocks this vitamin from being absorbed in the intestines, depriving the coccidia of the nutrient they need. When treating chickens, you need to refrain from giving them anything with a significant amount of thiamine in it.

If you can find a coccidiostat that also has sulfa antibiotic in it, get that. If it was coccidiosis that killed these chickens, it's likely that intestinal bacteria caused by inflammation caused it.

 

[hennanny]

Update. Wife just cut her open up . Her Livers had what looked like cuts and they where "leaking" reddish "stuff" also had black splotches. She was full of Yellow fluid and her Kidney just "Fell out was not attached.

Poor thing must of been in terrible pain
We live in NorthCental Mo and altho it has not warmed up our winter was very mild and it has been exceedingly wet these last few weeks