Creme Legbar increasingly lethargic, puffy

[peolsf]

Hi all, I'm a pretty new chicken person, 16 months into this. One of my birds is a Creme Legbar. We raised her from a day-old chick starting in Feb 2020. She and her two flockmates were outside from around June in their coop. She started laying in July and was going well until September, when she stopped. We are in San Francisco so the climate is mild but I attributed this to molting and/or wildfire smoke and/or fall and didn't worry too much. But 9 months later she has not restarted and gradually has seemed a bit slow and lower energy than the others, always last to hop out of the coop to forage, etc. In the past few days she has seemed more lethargic than before. She does a lot of standing around with her feathers a bit puffed out and her neck short (see pics). Her comb is now pale. She will still get interested to move for food but is not otherwise very active. Have not been able to observe poop but her crop seems okay. Vent looks okay from outside but I haven't done an internal check yet (but again, no eggs since Sept). I'm unsure whether she is just "not thriving" or if there's something more sinister going on. Have started to wonder about coccidiosis after reading about it here and am probably going to purchase Corid tomorrow to be on the safe side. I can't think of any other changes the last few days other than one of her flockmates going a bit broody. If anyone has any thoughts I'd appreciate them. Thanks.

 

[Goosebaby]

Has the flock been vaccinated for Mereks?

 

[LaFleche]

She does look very sick indeed. Poor thing.

Did you check her abdomen, is it bloated, squishy or hard?

A young hen not laying for such a long time is unusual, unless she would be suffering from a disorder of her reproductive organs. Egg yolk peritonitis comes to mind (internal egg laying) or cancer etc.

 

[peolsf]

Has the flock been vaccinated for Mereks?

No, they haven’t. That’s not a thing I know about.

 

[peolsf]

She does look very sick indeed. Poor thing.

Did you check her abdomen, is it bloated, squishy or hard?

A young hen not laying for such a long time is unusual, unless she would be suffering from a disorder of her reproductive organs. Egg yolk peritonitis comes to mind (internal egg laying) or cancer etc.

Thanks for your concern. Her abdomen feels normal I think. It’s definitely worrying me that it could be something like that. She’s just seemed “off” for a while now.

 

[Eggcessive]

Since she only laid eggs for a short time, and is just over a year old, my guess is that she is having a reproductive disorder. Those can include cancer, internal laying, ascites and egg yolk peritonitis. Her crop appears very large in the pictures. Can you check her crop in the early morning before she has eaten or drunk anything, to tell us if her crop has emptied, or if it is full, hard, puffy, or dough-like? If a hen has a reproductive disorder that may be increasing pressure inside the abdomen, the crop may not function as well. Check her lower belly for enlargement, and feel if she has lost any weight in her breast area by feeling her breast bone.

 

[peolsf]

Since she only laid eggs for a short time, and is just over a year old, my guess is that she is having a reproductive disorder. Those can include cancer, internal laying, ascites and egg yolk peritonitis. Her crop appears very large in the pictures. Can you check her crop in the early morning before she has eaten or drunk anything, to tell us if her crop has emptied, or if it is full, hard, puffy, or dough-like? If a hen has a reproductive disorder that may be increasing pressure inside the abdomen, the crop may not function as well. Check her lower belly for enlargement, and feel if she has lost any weight in her breast area by feeling her breast bone.

Wow, thank you so much. I’ll check all these things in the morning and report. She’s definitely lost weight—very light now.

 

[peolsf]

Reporting back to @Eggcessive and other helpful people here. Since I’m new to keeping hens this is the first time I’ve tried to check crops so I’m not 100% confident, but I think her crop is not enlarged. The pictures yesterday were a bit deceptive on that because her feathers are so puffed out. I think I’m just feeling breastbone a lot because she’s lost weight. Still very listless today although did make a go at foraging with the others. I did find this poop on the coop floor which I would strongly guess is hers since it’s under the spot where she usually roosts. Does it tell us anything? I so wish I could do something for her...

 

[Goosebaby]

Reporting back to @Eggcessive and other helpful people here. Since I’m new to keeping hens this is the first time I’ve tried to check crops so I’m not 100% confident, but I think her crop is not enlarged. The pictures yesterday were a bit deceptive on that because her feathers are so puffed out. I think I’m just feeling breastbone a lot because she’s lost weight. Still very listless today although did make a go at foraging with the others. I did find this poop on the coop floor which I would strongly guess is hers since it’s under the spot where she usually roosts. Does it tell us anything? I so wish I could do something for her...View attachment 2695455

I’m not too familiar with chickens but the droppings across a lot of bird species are fairly similar.
The dark bit is a bit of cecal, it looks like she hasn’t been eating much too, her urates look fairly white but it’s hard to tell sometimes with photos, paper white is good with urates, the yellow is concerning, it looks like yolk, my guess is she broke an egg internally.

 

[Eggcessive]

Yes, that dropping looks like she may have some broken egg yolk mixed in with the urates and green poop. To feel a crop I hold the chicken in my arms and cup a hand around the right upper chest. Practice on your normal chickens and feel the little pouch as it fills up during the day. It should be full at roost time and then empty by morning. Just from the pictures you can see her crop is full. Here is a picture of a very full crop:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3f/8f/e2/3f8fe238a81e31740cfd70adb40bfbd2.jpg
If a crop is still full in the am it could be an impacted crop, or if it is full and puffy and there is a bad odor from the beak, it might be a sour crop.