Chicken shaking and her balance is off....

[Wiccanchickens]

Did you happen to have a recent cold spell abruptly interrupted by a warmish or hot day? That occurred here, and a young hen just about died from heat exhaustion from the wild temperature swing from cold to hot. She came in to the run from free ranging and collapsed at my feet into semi-consciousness. I whipped her up and ran into the house with her and tubed room temp Gatoraid into her crop, a good half a cup. She revived in less than an hour and by evening was back to normal.

Come to think of it...yeah we did. It was warm yesterday but now it's colder so you might be right....we don't have Gatorade since we all think it tastes bad but I'll take it into consideration.

 

[azygous]

Gatoraid is just convenient. You can make your own electrolyte mix with the sugar water and a pinch of baking soda and salt. Chickens sometimes can't deal with wide temperature swings. It pays to be on the alert when we get weather like that.

 

[Wiccanchickens]

Update: She's doing so much better!!!!!
She's acting more like a normal chicken and she's eating and drinking on her own! Thank you for all your help! We had no clue what to do!

 

[Wiccanchickens]

Poor girl. We had her out in the coop with her flock. A few days later back in the house. Then back out to the flock. Today she's back in the house. Every time we leave her in the coop for the night she's back in the house again. She gets better and worse. We're cycling with her health. Yesterday she was running around, being normal. This morning she was found in the coop hunched over and sickly all over again.

Symptoms: Lethargic, shaking as if she's really cold. Looks generally poor, hunched over.

Her comb and waddle look good and bright in color. She really seems to enjoy the Epsom salt baths. Crop feels fine.

We've changed food to Feather Fixer and gave her her own a flock block. She looked like her feathers were coming in better after these changes. We were hopeful we could fix things, but she keeps getting sickly.

 

[Wiccanchickens]

Update: she passed away a couple days ago