Chicken has diarrhea, lethargic, not eating or drinking.

[casportpony]

Thank you for the article! I will do a lot more googling for a proper bird vet maybe north county or somewhere. I talked to our local chicken man at the farm store and he said his buffs are doing the same thing and often do during molt. She actually perked up for a bit today and grazed around quite a bit more so I don't know if it's the antibiotics or what. We also emptied our bird feeders so not as much wild bird seed is on ground. Honestly, I don't think I can tube feed. I'm not a farmer type. These are our pet chickens. They have a fenced enclosure under a tree (we wrapped the wire around tree and it provides shade, plus we put shade cloth around. The coop is in the shade almost all day. Oxytetracycline not good?

Oxytetracyline is not very effective in treating E. coli and pseudomonas, as well as a few others. If she laid a few soft shelled eggs, then stopped, I would want to rule out the possibility of a retained soft shelled egg, or it's membrane.

You say she isn't eating much, so be warned, once they loose 1/3 to 1/2 of their body weight they are very hard to save, so get a baseline weight on her, then weigh her daily. If she loses 5% of her baseline, she needs to be tube fed.

Please do consider finding a new vet, I think it's her best chance. If you do decide to tube, I can teach you... It's much easier than it looks/sounds, so easy actually that I have taught young teens how to do it.

-Kathy

 

[cfschick77]

I wish I knew how to send you a picture. I just called gout vets. Each one gave me the name for someone else who "had farm animals" but weren't really bird people. I finally found one about 40 min from here and made an appointment for Friday morning. The office girl was horrible and it will cost me $62.00 just to walk in the door but supposedly she knows birds. Nutty ate a few grapes and some bugs do that is good, and her poop was a little firmer. Not just watery, but an actual poop, though still slightly more watery. The farm guy thinks it's just molting but said to sprinkle permectin (louse powder) in the enclosure dirt to get rid of ants and any bugs that might be after her poopy but (flies). It didn't look red or inflamed or caked, just poop on her feathers. He seems to think I'm worrying too much (and I do tend to do that). I'll see how she's doing by Friday. The two vets that might be able to possibly help aren't in until then.

 

[cfschick77]

Poppy is one in front. Nutty (molting) one is under the tree.

 

[cfschick77]

I know it's hard to tell while she's lying down and she hides from me now because she knows I'm going to examine her.

 

[cfschick77]

Ok, poppy is front left and Nutty (chicken kinda acting funny) is on the right.

 

[casportpony]

I know it's hard to tell while she's lying down and she hides from me now because she knows I'm going to examine her.

Have you thoroughly examined her yet? Basics are outlined in the link I posted earlier. And now that you know how to post pictures, how about a picture of her poop?

She needs to be checked for lice and/or mites and treated accordingly if she has them. If she has poop on he butt, it needs to be cleaned off.

FYI, I think normal weight for a BO hen is 6 pounds or more.

-Kathy

 

[cfschick77]

This is a poop with white cylindrical shape is it worms? None on butt. What is the best dewormer?'

 

[madz]

Normal weight for a chicken is about 2kgs & you need to take her to a vet asap. I had to have my girl put down because she was showing all these symptoms, the vet couldn't do anything as I had left it to long because I assumed it was because I changed there feed the week before her symptoms started showing. (First symptom was runny poo) Basically her stomach was filled with liquid so she wasn't eating, easiest way to check if this is the problem is to check her glands/bags in her neck, they should feel like they have sand/grain in them if they feel like they are full of liquid then she is seriously sick. It basically causes them to stave to death.

 

[casportpony]

@madz , welcome to BYC!

-Kathy

 

[christinebb]

I am a newbie backyard chicken keeper - and bought four 5 month laying chickens. I lost 3 because I didn't know that diarrhea was such a bad thing for them, thinking that it would clear itself up. I tried Bird Biotic that someone onlie recommended, yoghurt, apple cider, etc. Kept them all clean but about 3 weeks ago, my last chicken also finally got diarrhea. I was devastated and blamed myself that after so much reseach online, nothing worked. As a last resort, I called the people at the feed store where I bought them and the sweet woman said not to discount a simple case of worms. I said that folks online said not to just assume it was a simple case of worms and most of them said essentially that having green/white diarrhea is almost a no cure. But I thought, if it was as simple as worms, I would be a terrible person not to try it. So I went on Amazon to find worm meds. I found Rooster Booster and was dismayed that it came in pallets. My chicken havent been touching its scratch and peck, food, meal worms, baked potatoes, yoghurt...nothing so how was I supposed to get her to eat these pellets. I had fed antiobiotics to the others before via a plastic syringe and I decided to make a slurry of the Rooster Booster. I tell you, I thought about doing the chicken dance when I saw a dollop of rounded poop the next day. Tiny but it wasn't diarrhea.
It kept getting better and better until a week later, there was no more diarrhea and by day 3 she started pecking her food. Before that, it was about a week without eating except scratching in the ground and pecking around. I posted my experience on the Amazon review of Rooster Booster and I wanted to tell everyone about this as it saved my last chicken - Please give it a try. I mashed a level teaspoon of booster with about 2 teaspoon of water. It was all an experiment out of desperation. I used a plastic syringe with the tip cut off as the booster is very thick and grainy. I never saw any worms before or after tho I studied the poops and diarrhea closely. I wish you all luck and hope you give this a try as it sucks to feel guilty that you were not able to save your chickens who have become pets. sorry for the long post. If you need to ask me questions, email me [email protected] with subject matter : chickens
I'll try to help