Ear/Sinus Infection?

[jwcarlson]

I think she may have multiple problems that could be a result of Mareks disease.

I'm not disagreeing, but it feels like she falls outside of the Marek's norm doesn't she? She's 10 months old. And she's been sick for... a long time 8-10 weeks, maybe longer? I thought Marek's usually kills fairly quickly? Nothing else really showing symptoms except this one that seems fairly different. Maybe I'm just rationalizing. Anything is possible. Some hens in this flock will be 8 years old here in a few months. Editing to add that she does check a few boxes for symptoms, pale comb swollen face... but seems like that's discharge related.

Regarding necropsy if it gets to that point. I think I probably will send her to the Iowa State University lab. It's not too far away, but three hours each way is a bit much. There's a county extension just a handful of miles away, so I'm sure they can walk me through it.

For now, I'm still letting her do her thing... it is not particularly difficult to care for her, especially now that she's used to me handling her daily. She's got a buddy in there with her (I can quarantine a chicken, but don't really have a good way of independently qt'ing two). I'll be moving them into a caged run and out of the dog crate tomorrow. Give them a little more space... see what happens.

I genuinely appreciate all of the ideas on this thread. I'll stay the course for now and update if anything meaningful unfolds.

 

[jwcarlson]

The second sick chicken seems like she's going to be just fine. A few more days of monistat and she'll probably just rejoin the flock. She laid an egg yesterday and her crop feels what I consider normal now. Nice and full/firm at bed time instead of a water balloon.

The original sick chicken has been getting monistat as well and since then it seems like her ears are making less mess and she's making less discharge. Additionally, she's much more spirited when I'm trying to handle her. She was pecking at me today. That said, I was prodding her tonight to see what the issue was near where her crop sits. It's discharge from her sleeping with her head under her wing. I had not thought to look under her wings until tonight... holy cow there's so much very gross build up under her wings and it is or was dripping down to her breast, which is where all the scaly stuff was coming from. But the unders of her wings are bad. I tried to clean up the loose stuff as best I could, but she wasn't very happy and I didn't want to tear anything apart.

Feel like I'm going to have to rig up a soak for her, though I don't think there's any shot of getting everything cleaned off of her. It seems like the buildup caused her feathers to die? Some of them basically just fall off. If I'm able to get everything softened up maybe the bad ones will kind of fall off and some of it will clean up.

 

[Eggcessive]

Her illness is really beyond my expertise. I hope that you can help her, but if you ever lose her, I would try to have your state vet do a necropsy and some testing on her. There was another thread today (see below) about a chicken with skin lesions. I would wonder about any skin irritants, and try to help her dust bathe which can help the skin stay in good condition.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/skin-condition-home-remedies-needed.1682590/