Chicken keeps falling over! Help!

[ANiceKaren]

You can worm any time. It's not a bad idea to cover that base. It won't affect the antibiotic.

How do you worm?

 

[azygous]

Get a tube of Safeguard and squeeze out a pea-size length of the goop, and wipe it off inside the beak. Pretty tricky, huh?

 

[ANiceKaren]

Get a tube of Safeguard and squeeze out a pea-size length of the goop, and wipe it off inside the beak. Pretty tricky, huh?

Wow! So easy!!! I assume I should just treat them all? She had a better day today.. still slower than rest of girls and resting a lot BUT free ranged all day and ate and drank some sugar water! It’s crazy how similar her symptoms are to Margaret’s! Night seems to be when she is most tired.. when I put them into run before bed she will stand in corner while others fill their faces before dark. I love her and want to her to get better! Thanks again so much!

 

[Kiki]

Excuse this interruption please
Pea size is wrong.

Please, please read this:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-sized-blob-of-horse-paste-de-wormer.1141545/


I am skimming do forgive me if it's been covered but have you considered your girl might be laying internally?
Have you thought about a vet visit for antibiotics?

 

[azygous]

 

[casportpony]

@Kiki is correct, a pea-size amount is not enough, it's the equivalent of 1/4 to 1/3 of the liquid for goats.

 

[ANiceKaren]

Excuse this interruption please
Pea size is wrong.

Please, please read this:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-sized-blob-of-horse-paste-de-wormer.1141545/


I am skimming do forgive me if it's been covered but have you considered your girl might be laying internally?
Have you thought about a vet visit for antibiotics?

I did consider the internal laying... she was laying great till this sickness. My other chicken had exact same symptoms and is now doing great... I’m just not sure! I assume an internal layer wouldn’t survive? I appreciate the reply!

 

[azygous]

I've had two internal layers that died from it. The only way I knew for sure they were laying internally was to open the abdominal cavity after they died. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/internal-laying-what-it-looks-like.1349959/ Warning - extremely disturbing photos.

 

[ANiceKaren]

I've had two internal layers that died from it. The only way I knew for sure they were laying internally was to open the abdominal cavity after they died. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/internal-laying-what-it-looks-like.1349959/ Warning - extremely disturbing photos.

How long would it take an internal laying chicken to die? I imagine she would be getting worse... her poo is the lightest yellow.. not yolk like at all...

 

[azygous]

Internal laying can go on for years. Or it can kill in just one week of ovulation. Last summer I lost a one-year old Blue Andelusian, and she went from free-ranging normally all morning to stepping inside the run at noon and falling over dead. She happened to fall right on top of two of my oldest hens who were resting on some feed sacks beside the pop hole.

That youngster isn't the necropsy hen in my photos at the above link. That was an older hen who had been acting lethargic for a while, but it wasn't anything I could diagnose. Judging from the hardboiled eggs, they had to have been cooking for weeks or months inside her.

The symptoms also fit a reproductive disease such as cancer or a bacterial infection such as salpingitis, neither being treatable.