did my hen die from worms?

[citichicks6]

so...my husband and i got 6 hens, 2 leghorns and 4 sexlinks(is this a breed of chicken? i've never seen it listed with other breeds) we got them a month ago and now they are 20 weeks old. we keep them in a moveable chicken tractor my husband made. we move them several times a day and have chicken feed for them. we love our girls, they always seem full of energy. yesterday morning we noticed one of our leghorns wasn't moving and did not eat or drink when we offered her food and water. we pulled her out of the tractor and tried to feed her throughout the day. we noticed she had pretty bad lice so i went to find something at the store for lice. when i came home she seemed worse so we brought her to the animal hospital. the vet told us that she was dying of starvation! we were shocked!

the day before she seemed fine to us. we brought her home and tried to feed her with a syringe but she didn't make it through the night. I've been reading a few posts on byc and trying to get an idea of what happened. we used some natural stuff for the lice for the others yesterday and when we picked them up we noticed they are also thin. from what i've read i suspect it was some kind of parasite. what do you all think?

i'm worried about the others now, i would like to deworm them. I would like to use something natural but i also really want to be sure it works. any advice?

 

[TwoCrows]

A sex-link is not a breed of chicken, but a certain coloring at birth so you can tell if you have a male or female. Are you sure they are getting enough to eat? If they are suffering from lice, then chances are they also may have mites and worms. All of which can drain the bird to the point of death if not caught early enough.

So I think it can't hurt for you to get some Sevin powder from the garden store or permethryn (sp) from the pet store, which kills lice and mites, and dust down your birds or spray them down with the permethryn. Yes, they are both chemicals, but at this point, they are in a bad way. Do an inspection of the tractor, around the perches and make sure there are no mites hiding around the underneath of the roosts, and check the nest box also for mites.

Same with worming. The most gentle chemical wormer is Wazine. It will kill off some of the intestinal worms that would definitely be making your chickens starve. After about 2 weeks, you should follow up with something like Safeguard. It is a paste that you can give each one a bee-bee size dolop and that will finish off the rest of the worms they may have. (Dont use the safe guard first as it kills all worms and too many dying worms in the chickens body is too overwhelming.) I have used these things before and they are perfectly safe to use.

Other than these things, make sure they always have water, are not getting too over heated in the tractor and their food is not moldy or spoiled. Watch to see how much the are actually eating.

Good luck with your chickens!