Chicken with tail down, doesnt roost, stays in nest box.

[PertyGertie]

This sounds exactly like what my hens had. Had vet do a necropsy and it was capillary worms. Check for other runny poop in your flock. I ended up worming my entire flock after that with Safeguard.

 

[nadrojsack]

This sounds exactly like what my hens had. Had vet do a necropsy and it was capillary worms. Check for other runny poop in your flock. I ended up worming my entire flock after that with Safeguard.

Runny and what colour? Safeguard is that available in UK?

 

[PertyGertie]

Oh no! I'm sorry. It's a goat wormer sold at our farm supply stores in the U.S. Not sure if you have access to it. Unfortunately you can't see capillary worms easily in the poop. The vet told me she did an initial autopsy to see if there was anything she could see. She said there looked to be a blockage in the intestines thus the watery and bloody skinny poops and full squishy crop before I had her put down. The first symptom that alerted me that she was ill is that she made a sneezing or coughing noise. Probably to try to dislodge the worms from her crop that were found later on in the exam. Not sure you wanted so much information or if you can even get the wormer.

 

[nadrojsack]

Oh no! I'm sorry. It's a goat wormer sold at our farm supply stores in the U.S. Not sure if you have access to it. Unfortunately you can't see capillary worms easily in the poop. The vet told me she did an initial autopsy to see if there was anything she could see. She said there looked to be a blockage in the intestines thus the watery and bloody skinny poops and full squishy crop before I had her put down. The first symptom that alerted me that she was ill is that she made a sneezing or coughing noise. Probably to try to dislodge the worms from her crop that were found later on in the exam. Not sure you wanted so much information or if you can even get the wormer.

Thats good information. I got heygates layer pellets with flubenvet - its the only medicated wormer here in the uk, all others are natural types vermex i use as a preventative. So ive filled their feeder today. Good advice may save me from loosing any more as some of my hens are skinny. How long before ill see the chickens put weight on?

 

[rebrascora]

Quote: Hi.

So sorry you lost your hen and well done for doing a post mortem.

I'm not sure if you are familiar with chicken anatomy but I think what you are talking about in the part of your quote I have highlighted above, is the gizzard and this is where the food is ground up. The third photo looks like you are holding the gizzard and have cut it open..... it is a very strong dense muscle with a thick leathery membrane inside. The grit is supposed to be there and the muscles massage the grit and food together, effectively chewing it..... since hens don't have teeth.

The poop looks runny like that because the hen has not been eating and it's a sign that food is not going through her system.

I'm struggling to figure out what the large mass is on the RHS of the second photo. The bottom part of it looks like the gizzard but it should be round, not sausage shaped. I'm concerned that that may be a tumour attached to the gizzard. It's difficult looking at individual photos where things have been removed and trying to figure out what is what. The kidneys look mottled too. but that may be as the of lack of food or perhaps the delay in opening her up. I'm no expert though. What about heart and liver? I'm assuming I can see some of the liver in that second photo and again in the top of the third but not enough to make an assessment.

How old was she and how long have you had her? Have you introduced any new birds to your flock in the past few weeks?

Apologies if I have stated the obvious as regards the gizzard. It's difficult to assess how much knowledge people have.

Hopefully someone else will be along soon and be able to give you a better idea of what was wrong with her.

 

[nadrojsack]

Tumour ey, interesting. Well i introduced 6 exbattery hens, i have lost one battery hen and one original hen, original was about 8 months old, ex was about 1.5 years. Im getting about 5 eggs a day from 10 hens which tells me some of them are not producing ideal numbers of eggs. Hopefully the flubenvet will help or rule out internal parasites and worms. Any other advice on how to help my flock? All the hens are getting along but i have.noticed some are quite thin so ive added and extra feeder. . .