Chicken in shock after introducing new hens?

[Beansan]

My Wyandotte’s have been on the extreme side of being easily stressed. The first time we introduced new hens to the flock, the molted from stress and their feathers grew back brittle. They’re still brittle 2 years later. We’ve been giving them crumble per the vet to try and increase their protein intake to hopefully encourage better growth to come in. They’ve been through a lot in the past few years between a few sisters bing killed by a hawk and we moved them into a bigger coop, but moved their old coop into so there was some familiarity.

Yesterday, we deemed it time to introduce our 4 new flock members and placed them in their own cage into our large extension with the other hens for the day. Dottie (Wyandotte) looked like she could have been sick to her stomach the second we placed them down. She was acting weird and just sat down for a bit. This morning she wouldn’t come out if the coop, she’s lethargic and won’t eat.

Is she in shock? Or just coincidence in timing and actually sick?

 

[azygous]

Change equals stress in Chicken World. Stress can activate viruses and bacteria otherwise lying dormant in chickens. So it is entirely possible the introduction of new pullets has activated an illness in your hen.

It can't hurt to treat her for stress and shock. Electrolytes and sugar water or just plain Gatoraid should do it. She might surprise you and bounce back by morning.

 

[Beansan]

She wouldn’t drink or eat anything last night, but she stood up this morning (yay!) and all she wanted to do was drink the sugar water/electrolyte mix I made for her as you suggested. We left her in the garage with the water and food if she feels up to it and her towel bed she slept in last night. Hopefully she’ll get over this hump! Thank you for your reply!

 

[Beansan]

Change equals stress in Chicken World. Stress can activate viruses and bacteria otherwise lying dormant in chickens. So it is entirely possible the introduction of new pullets has activated an illness in your hen.

It can't hurt to treat her for stress and shock. Electrolytes and sugar water or just plain Gatoraid should do it. She might surprise you and bounce back by morning.

She passed away today. Ended up taking her to the vet this morning and he thinks it was maybe fatty liver. Her face was on the yellow side but to us - it wasn’t any more yellow than usual for them and her color wasn’t different than her sister. He’s guessing she’s not too far behind if that’s the case

 

[azygous]

Have you disposed of her body? If you still have access to it, it would do your flock a huge favor by having it necropsied to learn cause of death.

For one thing, it could be your flock carries the lymphoid leucosis virus, a fairly common avian virus that most chickens manage to develop resistance to. The ones that don't can develop health issues including the fatty liver disease due to mutations in DNA in their cells and also cancer on their organs. I've lost some very young chickens, in their first year, from fatty liver and massive fatty deposits throughout due to LL.

 

[Beansan]

Have you disposed of her body? If you still have access to it, it would do your flock a huge favor by having it necropsied to learn cause of death.

For one thing, it could be your flock carries the lymphoid leucosis virus, a fairly common avian virus that most chickens manage to develop resistance to. The ones that don't can develop health issues including the fatty liver disease due to mutations in DNA in their cells and also cancer on their organs. I've lost some very young chickens, in their first year, from fatty liver and massive fatty deposits throughout due to LL.

The vet did keep her to send her off for a necropsy. He said it’ll take a week or so to get lab results back, so hopefully it will be helpful to avoid this happening to any of the others if it’s an issue!

 

[azygous]

You have a great vet. Keep them on the payroll. Please let us know the results by updating this thread. We will be anxiously awaiting.

 

[Diana_burns04]

I'm sorry! I had one of my girls killed by a hawk! He went into my coop then into the run and killed her! Are her all