Deworming question

[Eggcessive]

If she is acting like she is egg bound you could give a human calcium citrate tablet with vitamin D tablet or a Tum orally into her beak to swallow.

 

[Weetamoo93]

If she is acting like she is egg bound you could give a human calcium citrate tablet with vitamin D tablet or a Tum orally into her beak to swallow.

She's not really acting egg bound and I have not felt anything hard from an external or internal exam. I think the lack of egg(s) is stress and age. I have given her a couple calcium carbonate tabs (generic brand Tums) in case that is an issue.

Since she ate yesterday, I'm offering her food soaked in whey from yogurt.

 

[Weetamoo93]

Update: I'm mercy culling her tonight.

She got better and was walking around eating and drinking. Went to feed her this evening and she kept "wagging" her head and clumsily pecking at her food. Whenever she wasn't wagging it around, her head was trembling. Fast forward to all the kids in bed and getting the baby down and I can hear a sporadic commotion outside. I go to check and she's in the stargazing position, and very unsteady. I take her out to evaluate and she just starts violently thrashing; I thought she was dying on me right there. But she stopped and shakily held out her head for a bit before violently throwing it back. I'll get a video if possible prior to the cull; I do have a video of the head wagging.

I've had wry neck in a cockerel before and he just held his head at the wrong angle. She looks uncomfortable and I think the best thing for her is to help her move on. She's had a good life but the last two weeks have not been the kindest to her.

 

[Weetamoo93]

I'll work on uploading the videos of her behavior, but here's the photos from the mercy cull. I've only culled cockerels, so I'm not familiar with old hens.

She has a lot more fat than I expected (I guess that's where the term "fat old hen" came from?) and no eggs in development. I didn't see any obvious signs of infection or illness, so I put her in the fridge to feed my family (or dogs).

Attached organ photos in case someone sees something I don't. I meant to and totally forgot a photo of just the liver. That's what I get for doing this so late/early.

 

[Weetamoo93]

I didn't get a video of the thrashing on the ground, but this is what she was doing.

 

[Eggcessive]

Sorry for your loss. Poor thing. I agree, that is a lot of fat inside the body. I am not a pro at necropsy photos. If the liver was tan or light colored, it may have been fatty liver disease. I had one with that and the fat was 1 1/2 inches thick, between every organ, the liver was tan, and there was a large blood clot next to the liver. What do you feed your chickens? Is it fresh dated? Vitamin E deficiency can cause neurological problems, and E can leech out of feed if it gets old. I would also look at her wry neck and tremors as being possible Mareks. Usually Mareks is a problem in younger chickens. I’m not sure if fatty liver disease would affect her brain and cause neurological symptoms. Thanks for posting the necropsy photos.

 

[Weetamoo93]

Her liver was a bit more in the tan side, but not as dramatic as some of the photos I pulled up. No clots either, that I saw at the time of harvest.

My chickens get a mix of Purina Flock Raiser and "Healthy Hen" from a local mill in about 50:50, along with fermented scratch with is comprised of 3-way scratch, BOSS, and some whole corn. I need to go over my math on exact quantities, but I try to keep it at where they clean all their food before going up for the night with full crops. I got a bit lax with my "fermented" scratch and it's been more soaked grains (still a bit better I'd think) and I was probably giving them too much. Since culling her earlier last week I've cut back on the scratch grains.

I'll have to add photos of my setup sometime, but the chickens free range all day most days over about 1.5 acres and are usually fed late afternoon to early evening, so they get a fair amount of exercise and forage most their food throughout the day.

I'll watch for any signs of Mareks in the others, but so far everyone is pretty normal, aside from a hen with a limp. But I did nearly kill her when she ran under a board I slid off a dog crate, so I'm very certain that's an injury. I hope it's not Mareks as I've read that is absolutely dreadful to deal with and I just gave a cockerel to a relative.

ETA: her behavior reminded me a bit of videos I've seen in the past of chickens having seizures, so I thought perhaps that was what she was having. When she was "resting" in her pen before I culled her, she was almost in the "penguin" posture of being egg bound, but with her head all the way back and her toes curled up. I wonder if another option would a stroke (not from heat)? I know it's hard to tell without an actual veterinary diagnosis.

ETA 2: she had no eggs in the reproductive tract at the time of culling, so her issue was not egg binding.

 

[Weetamoo93]

Just wanted to return to this thread to say none of the other chickens (all 60 or so) have developed any ailments at all, so I think the issue was unique to this individual.

Closest I got to an ailment was my older cock (3 years old) up and died of what I presume to be a heart attack. I was feeding everyone, he was alert and eager one moment and thrashing on the ground in the next. In the seconds it took me to respond and get to him, he was limp and clearly deceased. Absolutely no lead up to the event.

I wish I could change the heading of the thread because it's gone way off track from deworming.