Chicken standing still

[Marks Yard]

Please help with our poor bird. Three days ago she was standing still in the garden and didn't run to get her snacks (unheard of). She had a very full crop and I could feel the grain inside it that I had fed her 24 hours previously. I rang the vet (who by her own admission is not an expert), and we decided to make sure that she drank some water and see how she was in 24 hours. Towards the end of the afternoon (after a bit of gentle crop massage and natural yoghurt) she started moving moving around, even though her crop was still full. The next morning she was fine - empty crop and running around feeding and drinking as normal. This was great, but this morning, she is standing still again. This time she has an empty crop and although she has picked at a bit of oats, honey and warm water, she has returned to the garden and has continued to stand still. Her poo this morning is frothy and white, with just a bit of dark matter in it.
We are at a loss now - we had our first chicken death about a month ago, the only symptoms being having spent 2 days standing still, then falling over dead. Both of these chickens are/were just under 3 years old, and are the only birds we have who have never moulted (seems strange, though mey may not be relevant).
Please help - we don't want another death from standing still!

 

[Kittymomma]

Sorry you found us under these conditions.

It would help a lot if you could copy/paste the questions from this link into your post and answer as many of them as you can. The more info. you can give the more likely someone will be able to help. I really don't know what it could be, but wanted to give you that info. and now that I've posted on here I'll be able to check back in the morning and give it a bump when more people are awake and online. Hopefully she'll be able to hang in there.

In the meantime I'd go with standard sick chook procedure and isolate her in a warm dry place where the others can't pick on her and you will be better able to monitor if she's eating/drinking at all and continue to see what her poos look like--gross, but usefull in diagnosing lots of things. I'll put a link to the poo page under the one with the questions to answer so you can take a look at it too. Since her crop seems to be working you might try some small pieces of bread soaked in olive oil (keep things lubed since it seems like she may have been impacted earlier) and some scrambled eggs. Most chickens LOVE scrambled eggs and they are a very good high protien food for sick or injured birds--Easy to digest too.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3569 Questions about your chook

http://www.chat.allotment.org.uk/index.php?topic=17568.0 Poo page

 

[Marks Yard]

Hi there, thanks for the advice - I just put her in a nice cosy box (she had only moved about half a metre since my last post) and was waiting for the scrambled egg to cool a bit before I gave her it, when she 'laid' an egg white, a bit of yolk and a bit of shell. She ate the shell straight away. While I was clearing it up I put her outside with the scrambled egg where the others couldn't get her. She ate some of the scrambled egg, drank a bit of water, then 'laid' the yolk. I was watching her and saw a bit of of the shell poking out of her, but then go back in again. She is now stood 'flaps down' as though she is trying to lay the rest. She has always been a good layer and has had no obvious trauma recently. She is very tame and we handle her a lot, but we are always very careful not to squash the birds. What do I do now? Please help!

 

[Marks Yard]

She must have passed and eaten the rest of the shell while I wasn't looking - she seems fine now in herself, but still has white poo. Does anyone know if this can be just a one-off, or is it a sign of somethiing else?

 

[Judy]

Let's hope it is a one time thing. There could still be broken shell in there so she could still be in trouble. I believe you should feed oils (olive oil soaked bread bits, for example, or a bit of castor oil) at this point, but that's just a memory from reading, I've never been through this, so hope you will read in the threads on the FAQ page.

Good luck.