Chicken acting drunk. Walking backwards and stumbling?

[Wyorp Rock]

Yesterday she jumped up on a box! But immediately stepped backwards and fell off. She took a couple steps without splaying out. That’s an improvement over the previous days. But she’s still nowhere near healthy.

I upped the vitamins (increased her Rooster Booster dosage), continue to sprinkle the crushed calcium supplement in her water and on her feed (I don’t have access to liquid version and she won’t take the huge pill), and continue giving her cooked scrambled eggs.

Maybe it’s a vitamin deficiency. If that’s the case, I wonder what could have caused it in her, since the rest of the flock is just fine, and I’m supposedly giving them quality feed (Nutrena Hi-Pro Layer Pellets).

I added rooster booster to the rest of the flock’s water just in case.

Glad to hear she's doing a little better.

 

[CityslickerHomestead]

She’s getting worse.

She won’t drink anymore. When I give her Rooster Booster and water through a syringe, she just lets it fall out of her mouth.

There’s hardly any poop in her pen, and she won’t touch the feed either.

I caved in and gave her an apple as a treat and she was happily eating it, but the lack of drinking is concerning to me.

Separately, the rest of the flock is fine. No signs of illness from them.

 

[CityslickerHomestead]

Update on Billie Jean:

She’s still alive and is slightly better than when I first discovered the issue a month ago. So, doing much better than her worst. I let her back in with the rest of the flock because I think the loneliness was doing her more harm.

She still walks around like she’s drunk, stumbling backwards, and is roosting on the floor, but she’s holding her own with the other chickens, happily eating and drinking, and dust bathing, and isn’t getting worse. She’s just… stable.

I stopped all forms of treats for the entire flock, and have them strictly on layer feed. Just in case it’s a nutrition issue. However the rest of the flock is doing just fine.

The entire flock is getting water treated with either Rooster Booster Poultry Cell, or Rooster Booster Liquid B-12 out in their runs. I’m just doing the bottle recommendation of 1oz per gallon. They also have a waterer with plain water inside the coop.

As long as she seems happy and not in pain, I’m not going to cull her.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Update on Billie Jean:

She’s still alive and is slightly better than when I first discovered the issue a month ago. So, doing much better than her worst. I let her back in with the rest of the flock because I think the loneliness was doing her more harm.

She still walks around like she’s drunk, stumbling backwards, and is roosting on the floor, but she’s holding her own with the other chickens, happily eating and drinking, and dust bathing, and isn’t getting worse. She’s just… stable.

I stopped all forms of treats for the entire flock, and have them strictly on layer feed. Just in case it’s a nutrition issue. However the rest of the flock is doing just fine.

The entire flock is getting water treated with either Rooster Booster Poultry Cell, or Rooster Booster Liquid B-12 out in their runs. I’m just doing the bottle recommendation of 1oz per gallon. They also have a waterer with plain water inside the coop.

As long as she seems happy and not in pain, I’m not going to cull her.

I'm glad to hear she's hanging in there. I'm sorry she's not improved a lot, but it's good that she's able to be with her flock.

Thank you for the update.

 

[CityslickerHomestead]

Update: for those looking for answers, I think it was anemia due to lice.

As of today she is back to “normal” which for her means no more stumbling. She’s hopping around, running and flapping her wings when I come out to the coop, and eating and drinking and pooping just fine.

Why I think it was anemia due to lice? Two weeks ago I was bathing another chicken with severe poopy butt, and found a bunch of nits on her underbelly. So I checked the entire flock and half of them had nits. We have had a flock of magpie hanging around, and for a few months with tons of rain, so I assume the flock picked up the lice from the wild birds, and then didn’t have adequate access to a dry dust bath.

Although Billie Jean didn’t have a lot of nits or visible lice on her, I think she was more susceptible to anemia compared to the younger flock members.

I bathed every one of them in mild soapy water, treated them all with permethrin, cleaned out the coop and sprayed it with permethrin. A week later I treated the flock again with permethrin. Fingers crossed that’ll do the trick.

Just in case, I’m buying Elector PSP and going to treat them all in another week or so.