Hi all,
I'm trying to figure out what's up with my cream legbar hen. She's 7 months old. The first thing I noticed was that I caught her on camera over night suddenly behaving as though her legs were paralyzed for several hours (this happened a week ago). I didn't discover the video, however, until several days after it had happened, and had not noticed anything off about her prior to that. Haven't seen any other issues.
I checked her out more closely after I saw the video, and realized she had a poopy butt. Cleaned her up. Started adding Rooster Booster to the water in case it's vitamin deficiency. She's behaving perfectly normally. But the other day while cleaning the coop it seemed there was something funny in her poop. Like any normal chicken-person I poked at it with a stick and it appeared to be sand, gravel, etc... I don't have any pics but I'll post them if I get some.
Then today I found another pile of the same poop in the yard, and confirmed that it's definitely full of rocks & gravel (otherwise it looks like normal healthy chicken poo). The girls are on sand so I don't give them grit. Plus they free run in the mornings & evenings. Only her poop looks like this, no one else's. I'm aware that they eat rocks, but I've never seen poop like this in my 4 years as a chicken mama. The flock is on Purina Flock Raiser crumbles, and she doesn't seem to have any trouble accessing the food.
She feels a litlte uderweight. Not dramatically. She weighed 3.4 lbs. a month ago (off the roost first thing in the morning), and was 3.5 lbs. now (mid day), so she didn't really gain any significant weight in the last month.
I'd love to hear your thoughts or ideas of what might be going on. If you're interested, the link is posted below to the videos of her struggling on the roost. No clue if it's related or not.
Temporary paralysis while roosting. Seems to come an go? Any ideas?
I'm trying to figure out what's up with my cream legbar hen. She's 7 months old. The first thing I noticed was that I caught her on camera over night suddenly behaving as though her legs were paralyzed for several hours (this happened a week ago). I didn't discover the video, however, until several days after it had happened, and had not noticed anything off about her prior to that. Haven't seen any other issues.
I checked her out more closely after I saw the video, and realized she had a poopy butt. Cleaned her up. Started adding Rooster Booster to the water in case it's vitamin deficiency. She's behaving perfectly normally. But the other day while cleaning the coop it seemed there was something funny in her poop. Like any normal chicken-person I poked at it with a stick and it appeared to be sand, gravel, etc... I don't have any pics but I'll post them if I get some.
Then today I found another pile of the same poop in the yard, and confirmed that it's definitely full of rocks & gravel (otherwise it looks like normal healthy chicken poo). The girls are on sand so I don't give them grit. Plus they free run in the mornings & evenings. Only her poop looks like this, no one else's. I'm aware that they eat rocks, but I've never seen poop like this in my 4 years as a chicken mama. The flock is on Purina Flock Raiser crumbles, and she doesn't seem to have any trouble accessing the food.
She feels a litlte uderweight. Not dramatically. She weighed 3.4 lbs. a month ago (off the roost first thing in the morning), and was 3.5 lbs. now (mid day), so she didn't really gain any significant weight in the last month.
I'd love to hear your thoughts or ideas of what might be going on. If you're interested, the link is posted below to the videos of her struggling on the roost. No clue if it's related or not.
Temporary paralysis while roosting. Seems to come an go? Any ideas?
