dying chicken's?

[sick56]

Hi, I am new; We have lost 3 hen's in last year, One died last nite,sad she had not been feeling well and has had runy poop for 2 weeks just like the ones before, I am confused with so many diseases! Symyoms are always the same, but this chicked died pretty fast, we live in oregon and let are chickens free range,there is raccoons, I susspect worms I guess from what I am reading.....runy poop is first thing you noticed,didnt see worms,this goes on for a couple weeks,then 2 days ago her egg shell was really thin,she was a barred rock only a year old or so young for a chicken! Next day she didnt want to walk and just stayed on floor,fluffed feather's and pulsating rear??????then dead next morning,this morning; What is killing my chicken's what is it? what can I do????? If anyone knows we love our chicken's and we cry every time one dies and we are considering just buying our eggs at the store cause this is too stressfull.

 

[math ace]

That is horrid. I hope somebody with more experience answers your question. So sorry about your losses.

 

[chickenzoo]

Can you tell us what you are feeding them, do they get ground oyster shell....if they have ever been wormed etc... as much info as you can. Since they all died at different times it seems and with long spans in between I would first guess worms or parasites such as lice, mites etc.. but just a guess on the info.

 

[sick56]

Yes we give em oyster shells and no we have never wormed,feed them 5 grain chicken scratch and crumbles feed and table scraps,old toast ect. and chicken gravel mixed with the ground oyster shell, no meat,never have seen any round worms in poop, It's like they get septic(poisens in their bodys and die a few day's later,somtimes they get better for awhile and always die?maybe we SHOULD worm them, You are probally right cause she had yellow in her watery poop about a week ago.thank's

 

[chickenzoo]

Wazine treats round worms only. Safeguard liquid goat wormer treats a lot more worm types and you can either give them 1/2 cc in the mouth or mix 3ccs to a gallon of water to treat them for 3 days. Make sure to wait 30 days before eating eggs. Ivomectrain applied to the skin treats most worms aswell as lice & mites..... same wait time for eggs. You will only see worms in poo when they have a very heavy infestation and the adult worms die off and are expelled in the poo. You don't always see them. Best Wishes..

 

[jjthink]

I'm so sorry about these sad losses. It can be very difficult to sort these things out, unfortunately, hence why I worry every time a newsarticle encourages chicken keeping as an easy endeavor. In reality, it requires a great deal of knowledge, and even then, can be very counfounding as many of us know all too well.

Many things can be cured if dealt with quickly. Two weeks is unfortunately a very long time in chickendom. One almost has to act immediately when anything is not quite right, in order to solve the problem in time. The pulsating could have been an attempt at egg laying and if it was an eggbound situation she may have died of a heart attack. Though the symptoms prior indicate something else was going on to weaken her.

I don't know how many hens you have but 3 losses is not insignificant. Perhaps you can open a thread describing in detail everything about your birds and their care along with the deaths and apparent circumstances surrounding those losses and see if suggestions come about that could reduce future illness. If possible, have a necropsy on the bird that just died, though the reason she died may be different than the reason the others did.
JJ