Bullying, Bathing, Runts, and Handling Hens

[chooks4life]

Those poops look like they might include blood and mucous or perhaps egg white, if that's it. Now she's really confused me.

I wonder if the egg's cracked under her contractions and she's trying to shift its remains. I'm not sure but perhaps the oral laxatives are worth doing again, since that poop looks like it brought things out that she needed to be rid of; not normal poop, but maybe blood and something else. Almost looks like lining from some mucous membrane, or egg white. If that reddish brownish stuff is blood, at least it's coagulated.

When did she start holding her tail up?

 

[Farmer Viola]

She held it up just for the one photo apparently, it's back down again now.

I gave her more laxative, a warm compress, snuggles, and chamomile/rose/thyme/electrolyte water. After all that she had a walk on the carpet and her tail was straight back, so that's something?

She was pecking at the ground looking for food, and a bit of liquid spilled out her beak. I'm not sure it was vomit, but.. did I give her too much liquid? I don't think it was vomit exactly.. She only took a few steps, and her wings were hanging down dragging the ground. she's in bed now.


She took a few more poops for you. I uploaded the highest resolution version:

The ones circled in the middle are the same ones from the last photo; different perspective on the white poop seen in the last photo, and a little more dried out.

 

[chooks4life]

I'd probably put her on a more simplified diet, as in let her have normal water and grain and watch what she selects to eat. I wouldn't give her pellets or kelp for a bit while we try to figure out what's gone on. Since chooks can't throw up per se I'd guess she's just digesting slower than usual due to her problem so it came out when she lowered her head. What's she been eating for the last few days?

There was a poop thread somewhere on these forums that had some explanations for what certain color poops mean. Just off the top of my head, her poops could indicate that her liver's having a bit of a hard time. This could be due to her sudden cessation of laying and the re-absorption of her yolks. I can't recall anything that causes eggbound behavior then reverts without an egg removed into normal posture. Very strange. I would think maybe a back injury, but she ought to still have laid that overdue egg if that was the case... Unless it's preventing her due to nerve damage. Is there any patch of abnormal heat or tenderness in her back?

You could try her on some green grass, as in bring her outside to have some sunshine and peck around, and raw onion's also good to detox blood. I think anything detoxing you can let her at would help. Her poops look like her body's trying to remove something before it goes bad. But overall this is a strange issue. I hope someone knows what it is. Best wishes.

 

[Farmer Viola]

Quote:
She has a water dish, and I see her drink from it occasionally. On Monday she was on a liquid fast, I gave her only water all day, no food at all. I was doing herbal treatments, honeywater, etc. Tuesday/"today" (it's after midnight here) I reintroduced crumbles. She also took aprox 2 bird bites of scrambled egg earlier in the day, also greenery (kelp & fennel) but I cannot say if she actually ate it. So she had food for the 1 day, 18ish hours, it's removed again now tuesday night/wednesday.

What type of grain should they have in replacement of crumble feed? I just buy a huge bag of organic layer crumbles from the feed store. If I should do something different, I will! Of course I supplement their feed with lots of veggies, greens, etc.

Quote:
How interesting! I wonder if something else could have ailed her, and she stopped laying suddenly in response? Maybe she ate something disagreeable, the liver is working it out, and all egg production stopped to recover? It just doesn't explain the symptoms she has. Her panting is distress if I ever saw it. I don't feel any abnormal heat or tenderness near her spine, although certainly she's sick of my obsession with her butt. She doesn't protest hard, but she will walk away or leave my lap, otherwise content to stay.

I will be sure to take her outside for grass tomorrow will update more then.. going to bed now.. thanks chooks. <3

 

[chooks4life]

It sure is strange. I don't know about grains specifically, I just meant whatever you feed her normally, but putting her back on something that will encourage her to lay is not good right now. Barley is supposed to be alkaline and good for kidneys etc but I've read that pearl barley is a bred up variation that is now acidic, so I don't know. Possibly the best diet right now would be easily digested, mildly laxative, detoxing, and fresh, so no heavy proteins, raw foods where possible, 'baby food'/convalescent foods (honey's one) --- it just means anything gentle on the system but highly nutritious... And seeing other chooks, having some vitamin D etc should help her. I don't know what's gone wrong or even if it's starting to go right. Hope things look better in the morning. Best wishes.

 

[Farmer Viola]

Overnight poops.
EDIT: These overnight poops were with LAXATIVES!

I do see some red in it should I be worried about coccidosis? isn't she too old? 7.5 months


Woke up this morning, offered her 6 grain scratch; she seems to like the oats and rye, then corn, doesn't care for sunflower kernels. Her first bite, she dumped liquid out her beak, but that didn't happen again. Stood w/tail straight back.

I brought her outside and let her walk around slowly. Her wings were dragging, but she tried to keep them held up. She inspected several blades of grass, ate 1 or 2, but mostly looked at the grass, not eating. She didn't pant at all while walking outside. She started to get tired I thought, closing her eyes, so I brought her back in. Tail back/slightly up!


Now she's inside in her box, and she's panting. She hadn't panted all morning (3hrs). I'm going to let her rest and nap, then take her outside again later today. In her box, she has regular water and 6 grain scratch (carbs/energy). Her regular feed is high protien layer feed, so I can't give her that.. I also have yogurt, lemon, lettuce, fennel, raw corn... will definitely do honey water.



edit:
I almost forgot, Frankie got out of chicken prison yesterday! She was absolutely ecstatic, haha, I've never seen a chicken so happy. She was hopping and flitting and flying around in little jumps, probably so excited to use her wings after being in a cage! I have NOT seen her go in the nest since then, so I'm considering her broodiness cured! Wondering when she will get back into egglaying again. I was hoping her place in the pecking order would be retained since she has been caged in the coop, with everyone. But she did assert her dominance a few times by flying/kicking other girl's backs yesterday. Today things seem(?) calmer.

This morning I found an absolutely HUGE egg, no idea who laid it. It's either just freakishly large (by comparison to their normal eggs... average for the store, probably), or a double yolker. It's dark in color, like lightning, but no spots. I'm befuddled!

I am 99.9% sure Squinter laid an egg today. She was running down to the nest, singing for a while, and coming back up, repeatedly. I later found a medium sized bullet shaped egg! It's light colored, not dark like a RIR should be (but neither is she...) and has white spots on it, looks like an australorp's TBH but I didn't see anyone else in the nest. I have been finding light colored eggs with brown spots lately, and I was thinking they might be hers, but this one is throwing me off. It's hard to say whose is whose by looks, I feel that their color and shape can change from day to day. Watching who exits the nest is the only way I can really know..

edit2: (1pm)
She napped, then I squirted honey/herb/electrolyte water into her beak, and brought her back outside with the flock. She seemed to perk up outside, either from the water or the other chooks, not sure which. I let her wander with them for about 30 minutes and she made it across the yard. When I threw some scratch to draw them back to the house, she actually ran! I was surprised to see her so energetic. She was actively pecking around with everyone else, but her posture is still off. Ruffled, wings hanging, tail sometimes up, sometimes back. Her butt feathers are kind of droopy right now, but that's because they were incidentally covered in olive oil when I squirted it up her vent.



After the feeding, everyone went into the bushes (near the top center of the above photo), where they have nests dug out in the dirt. The other girls dug into their nests, but Ethel just stood under a bush and slept. Maybe laying on her stomach causes her pain? (coccidosis symptom)

kind of hard to see, but: Runty-Ethel-Lucy (burried in a dirt nest)

she is now back inside sleeping in her box.

 

[chooks4life]

Interesting thought, that it might be cocci. That wouldn't have suddenly stopped her laying and caused her to adopt that tail-on-the-ground pose, but a roached/hunched back is a symptom of cocci.

Given that she suddenly stopped laying, and adopted the classic eggbound pose, I don't think it originally was cocci, but I might be wrong; in any event, it might be best to treat for it just in case. If it was a simple case of her being egg bound, she would have died already, in all likelihood.

There are 9 or so different strains of cocci for chooks, and I expect people are creating new and stronger ones with the constant antibiotic use for every little thing. I know they use a thiamine blocker for cocci but many cocci are living in the intestines of birds treated with antibiotics for other things as a rule, not as an exception. So there's every chance there either is, or will be, another stronger strain (or several) of cocci in future.

A chook's never too old for cocci, they're just more likely to have an early initial bout with it. Since a wild bird could have just brought in a strain they've never been exposed to, it's always a possibility; any already present strains they would have become immune to as chicks.

Not sure if I've told you this but I'll add it just in case: some chickens get depressed when isolated from the flock, staring at four walls, in an unnatural environment. For this reason it's always best to have a convalescent cage outside, also because being able to see other birds, obtain vitamin D, etc, are all beneficial. We, like all living things, run on DC but our houses run on AC which disrupts healing and the normal electrical activity of every cell in the body. Our bodies build up a level of static electricity which is not noticed often but in sensitive or damaged individuals can be life-threatening. Just touching the earth (dirt preferably, but grass works too, especially if wet) will discharge this static buildup and restore our electrical cellular conduction to normal. It helps with shock and recovery from anything. It is one of the simplest ways to help heal thyroid issues, interestingly, to have bare feet on dirt for five to fifteen minutes daily. Everyone, every day, should be resetting their altered circuitry to normal. It only takes a few minutes but even a few moments helps.

Many chickens will heal without 'earthing' but some won't. Also some will heal without being able to see the flock but many just get depressed. Sunshine is vital to healing too. There are vitamin D receptors in every tissue and organ in our bodies. Strangely enough, some are even inside our bones. Sunlight reaches places we don't often think it can. It helps to remember it's radiation.

I am related to a few people who are so 'dirty elec' sensitive that they lose circulation and nerve function within seconds of touching a mobile phone or other strong electrical device, and over a short amount of time become actually crippled and ill. Me typing away on the keyboard is something they cannot do without getting numb and blue hands. I've heard from a lawyer that there are many lawyers already building cases for a mass suit against the manufacturers of 'dirty' electricity for the disease and death it's caused. There is an overwhelming weight of proof and this will likely occur in the next decade. One of the quickest ways to cause cancer is to expose damaged cells to the wrong electrical field, which we live within in modern buildings, and this evidence is long known and proven.

I see the dark reddish possible blood spots in the poop. It's coagulated and partially digested though, which is not the case with cocci-caused blood spotting. But it's always good to be mindful of new strains of diseases and alterations to existing strains, everything changes all the time. No cocci that I know of could have caused her to stop laying but perhaps she had already reached a period of non laying for whatever reason. If anything has harmed her stomach or digestive tract, like eating the wrong thing, that could have allowed already present cocci to graduate into causing coccidiosis. So perhaps this could have done it.

Also, if she ate a non food item that cut her up inside, that could cause her to stop producing eggs as the pain levels would have leached calcium out of her rapidly, so she may have started re-absorbing her eggs immediately without the due egg even gaining a shell. If the sharp object was in her intestines it could account for old blood showing in the poops as well as the straining and hunching as though egg bound. Maybe it passed from her gut to her intestines. Just possibilities. Either way, she's digesting quite normally, all things considered, and you should go with whatever you think is best.

 

[Farmer Viola]

Hey! Yesterday was a busy day, but I did see you reply, and I did put her back outside again. I didn't want her to go too far while free ranging, she was trying to keep up with the flock, following them down the hill to the garden where I was. Now she's in a wire cage on the ground with grass poking up through it. She spent an hour walking on the actual earth this morning. I throw scratch around her cage and that keeps everyone close to her.

edit: I think she was doing better yesterday. My husband said that her comb looked redder yesterday and today compared to before, it was much more pale. Today, her tail sometimes points up, but other times it's down. She's still sluggish and low energy. edit: just gave her the combination water, hoping it will help her perk up, she's outside "free ranging," AKA laying down resting, the flock moved on to another part of the yard.

Quote: I wonder if eating pine could cut her? I just keep going back to the bedding because it was the only thing that changed, but truthfully we'll never know.

I went to a poultry raising workshop yesterday who sang praises for local hatcheries. I learned some things, but disagreed with some of the information they were spreading. I know they had thousands of chicks somewhere, I could hear them, but I avoided them because who knows what poultry disease I carry, or could possibly pick up. They were also fearmongering about vaccines, stressing to pay for them at the hatchery, saying that backyard breeders can never vaccinate their chicks (and not to buy them) because they only sell 100,000 doses for (some large sum of money). I told them I know where they can get 100 doses of mareks for $19.99... crowd gasp. lol


Squinter eating what's inside the cage lol, always greener on the other side. This cage is just for the times when I can't be outside to watch her free ranging.


Last night's poops. Laxatives should be out of her system. After a day of free ranging on grass, eating grain, and lots of water.

edit 7pm:
She is not doing very well.. mostly sleeping. Weak neck. I fear we may have to cull her tonight or tomorrow Do you think this could be the same thing as Wilma? Wilma had the leg injuries, but she sort of wasted away similarly..

I just read that apple seeds are toxic, is one seed deadly? 10 seeds? 100s? I have many apple trees in my yard, and while we hire help to pick them up, they are sometimes picked at by the chooks. I just picked up 2 that were cracked open and potentially eaten inside (the seeds).

If it were contagious, everyone has been exposed >.< I just have no idea what is wrong. bleh.

 

[Farmer Viola]

IS THIS A WORM?

I can't tell?! It looks like a worm! I think Ethel pooped in this food dish. It WAS also left outside overnight....


I have been providing her with garlic, but short of force-feeding her, can't be sure she has actually eaten it. I always provide garlic to the flock as well. If this is a worm, I have D.E., acv is already in their main water. I have not been able to locate raspberry leaves, but I did get her rose oil, to no avail.

A poop Ethel took on my dirty carpet this morning.



Her condition isn't improving, she does walk around, but she is mostly doing this:

I feel awful for her, I am inclined to put her out of her misery... going to get the necessary supplies ready.

 

[mg15]

IS THIS A WORM?

I can't tell?! It looks like a worm! I think Ethel pooped in this food dish. It WAS also left outside overnight....


I have been providing her with garlic, but short of force-feeding her, can't be sure she has actually eaten it. I always provide garlic to the flock as well. If this is a worm, I have D.E., acv is already in their main water. I have not been able to locate raspberry leaves, but I did get her rose oil, to no avail.

A poop Ethel took on my dirty carpet this morning.



Her condition isn't improving, she does walk around, but she is mostly doing this:

I feel awful for her, I am inclined to put her out of her misery... going to get the necessary supplies ready.

I have tube fed my Australorpe. she lived and is fine. There is a site on BYC that can walk you thru the tubing. Not hard at all. Believe me.