Dominque hen shaking & throwing up

[CelticArche]

It seems like I'm always in here with possibly sick birds. This one is a Dominique hen. She's about 2 or perhaps 3 years old. She's molting, with the others, so we've been giving them game bird food and tuna every other day.

She started showing symptoms of a possible illness today, which we noticed as we were putting the chickens back into their pen. (We let them free roam the yard during daylight hours.) We noticed she wasn't roosting on my mom's porch, like most of the others do. She was just standing at the bottom and not showing much interest.

My mom picked her up, noticed she was making soft wheezing sounds and that she had mites. So we've brought her into the spare bathroom, and dusted her down with wood ash. She started to shake, had diarrhea, and had thin fluid dripping out of her beak that was reddish colored.

She seemed fine earlier today. Mom and I gave her 1cc of Tylan 50. Any ideas on what might be going on?

 

[Eggcessive]

Have you seen respiratory disease in your birds before? How does her crop feel--empty, full, puffy, or hard? Make sure that she is drinking plenty of water, and mix a tsp of plain yogurt (such as Chobani) into 1/2 cup of chicken feed plus some egg and a lot of water to make a mash. Discard after each day.

 

[CelticArche]

Her male died suddenly this past summer, after being treated for a cough. The other chickens don't sound like they're having respiratory illness. My mom though my rooster was sneezing, and we quarantined him for 2 days with some VetRX, and he seems fine as far as breathing goes.

He is rather thin and not really gaining weight. He also seems to be having a hard molt, as he lost almost all his tail feathers and quite a few around his neck. He's gotten pins since we've started giving them canned tuna twice a week.

We didn't check her crop, but we did check to see if she was egg bound.

 

[CelticArche]

I am on the phone with my mom. She says Sweetpea is laying down like she's in a nest, and her head is down and she appears to be sleeping. Mom put a heat lamp on her to see if she can get warm.

Edit: The other day we gave the chickens some raw broccoli, thawed corn, and thawed peas with some pumpkin seeds. We also introduced them to plain yogurt because they seemed to be asking for calcium.

 

[Eggcessive]

Molts are hard on chickens, and the stress can bring out symptoms of common diseases. The heatlamp may help prevent her from chilling as long as she can get away from it if she gets too warm. She may have infectious bronchitis, a common respiratory virus, but MG or mycoplasma can look similar. I hope your chickens get better soon.

 

[CelticArche]

We lost her. This is our second ill chicken we've lost. We lost one to a hawk. It's a bad year for our chickens.

 

[FrankieDoodle]

I'm so sorry

 

[Nardo]

We lost her. This is our second ill chicken we've lost. We lost one to a hawk. It's a bad year for our chickens.

So sorry. That's a hard thing.

 

[AnneInTheBurbs]

We lost her. This is our second ill chicken we've lost. We lost one to a hawk. It's a bad year for our chickens.

So sorry, I'm glad she didn't suffer long. Sounds like she was pretty bad.

 

[Eggcessive]

Sorry that you lost her. Sometimes it can help to refrigerate the body and send it off or take it to your state poultry vet for a necropsy to identify the respiratory disease, since many will remain in the flock. That way if another gets sick, you will know what to use to treat, or if antibiotics won't help. These sites have contact info:
http://www.metzerfarms.com/PoultryLabs.cfm
https://www.heritageacresmarket.com/blogs/misc/necropsy-list