Bird sitting on ground, sluggish and barely eating, deteriorating

[Snowy Canadian]

One of my chickens that I got from a friend is now sitting on the ground in the coop, and isn't moving around too much. When I put food in front of her, she eats fast like she's hungry, but then stops before too long. Her crop is empty in the morning, but was only slightly filled at night. She can still stand, but doesn't move much, and she isn't laying any eggs. It's winter right now, and the temperatures are not too cold, all the birds are going outside, except her.

I don't know what could be wrong with her, but this doesn't seem like an isolated event. This same thing happened to a second chicken of mine over a month ago. She became less active and one day I just found her on the ground and all her muscled had atrophied and she couldn't even hold her head up. After over a month of trying to nurse her back to health, hand feeding her multiple times daily, she was beginning to recover, but one day her condition began to drop rapidly, and she ended up dying. One thing about this hen is that she was having wet poop that was very yellow and sulfury when she started to decline, which could be a symptom. I raised all my birds form chicks, except for these two hens, and I have no idea how old they are, or what breed they are, but they were perfectly healthy for probably 8 months before this. I have 2 roosts in my coop, and for the past week this remaining chicken was sitting on the lower roost. but yesterday when I put them away she was on the ground, hiding in the corner. Inside of my chicken coop I have 8 hens, 2 roosters, 4 ducks, and 2 geese. The ducks and geese keep to themselves mostly, but the roosters will pick on her and will try to mate with my injured hen on the floor. Two things I can think of are that she has a small case of lice, and has previously suffered for ma bad case of scaly leg mites, but she was still in great condition, and neither of these seem too too bad.

I'm not sure if this is a result of their breed, the conditions they are kept in, the other birds, or some sort of disease, but I would like to help her recover, and prevent other birds from getting hurt. It's possible its just these 2 birds because they must have had a hard life on their old open wander farm, but I couldn't say. any help or advice people have for this would be greatly appreciated.

 

[azygous]

The hen in the photo appears to be a Golden sex-link or a similar sex-link. If the hen that died looked like this one, it was probably a sex-link, too. Sex-links have a tendency to have reproductive issues after the first year. I'm dealing with this right now in my flock.

Assume your hen has a reproductive infection. She could use an oral antibiotic. Do you have any on hand?

What's your city, state and country?

 

[Snowy Canadian]

Hi, I live in western Canada, and they don't allow you to pick up antibiotics at the vets without an examination, which I can't really afford. She and the other one do look a lot like a sex-link birds, but based on the size of her spurs, I thought she must be a few years old. She was laying eggs when we got her, and stopped in autumn last year. From your experience what could cause a reproductive infection, and could you think of something other than antibiotics to cure it? When your birds had an infection, did they also stop eating and lay on the floor? Thanks for the help, I don't want to lose another chicken.

 

[azygous]

If you've known human women who seem to always get bladder and vaginal infections, then you will begin to understand that hens are also vulnerable to these. The culprit is the way female organs are designed with a handy "entrance" so the male can deposit sperm. This "convenience" allows bacteria easy entrance, as well.

Once bacteria gets into a hen's oviduct, it works its way all the way up into her "business parts" and that's where this sort of infection becomes very difficult to treat. Much of the time, even an antibiotic won't help. But expecting the infection to go away without it, isn't realistic.

However, bacterial infection may not be the worst thing. Tumor causing avian viruses can also cause these symptoms, and your first hen that sickened and died had symptoms consistent with this. The extreme weight loss is not something you generally see with a bacterial infection. It is one of the symptoms of cancer tumors. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell for sure which is the underlying cause of this hen's illness. Vets can run tests, but we small flock keepers can only try to narrow the symptoms down to something to treat, and then try this med or that one and see what works.

The hens I've had with similar symptoms began having diarrhea, lost their appetites, lost weight, stopped laying eggs, and one developed liver disease on top of the reproductive issue. She died last month. The current hen I'm treating has had this for a year now. Over the year, I've tried three different antibiotics, and she is currently on a fourth one. I won't know for a few more weeks if it's working.

We have some west coast states in the US that prohibit antibiotics without a vet prescription, and it makes it challenging to try to treat the chickens. Sometimes, people can find an expired antibiotic in their bathroom they forgot about. Or maybe a friend or relative has a prescription antibiotic they got well and never needed to finish it. Ask around. People antibiotics work on chickens just as well as humans.

 

[Snowy Canadian]

Thank you, this is a great starting point for treatment. The problem with chickens is that a symptom can have a number of causes, but this one lines up with a lot of the symptoms. I'll try to see if I can get antibiotics in the pharmacy, if not I can always get them online. worst case scenario, I will need to try something else. Thank you for your help, and I wish you luck with helping your chickens recover.