Castlewood
Songster
TL;DR: sick chicken who appeared overheated a week ago now heavy breathing with head in the ground, tail straight up. Pupils very large & undefined (obvs Mareks concern). Anyone seen this??
We've got a 5-5.5 month old Easter Egger (Tammy) looking very poorly lately. About a week ago, after multiple 105 degree days here in Central TX, she was suffering more than normal from the heat. (Our EEs in general tend to pant the heaviest on these hoooootttt summer days, even more than our Brahma. Today's high temp of mid-90s helped break what was looking to be a record-setting heatwave.) We put her in a bit of cool water, submerging her legs, and she stayed there for about 10 minutes before she hopped out; at one point she even laid to the side a bit, getting some water up under her wing. For a few days afterward, she was looking good.
The day of her "bath" we noticed Tammy's eyes looked funny (see photo) with the pupil very large and not well-defined at the edges. Post-bath she spent a few days looking spry and lively, totally normal, but now she's definitely NOT okay. She's breathing heavy, what we call "tail breathing"--you know, when the whole body seems to be inhaling/exhaling. Heaving, almost. Yesterday she started lying with her head buried down in the ground and her tail straight up (she lifted her head up for the photo below).
Because of Tammy's eyes, Mareks is obviously a concern. Early July, another same aged Buff Orpington died after exhibiting very similar symptoms, although she showed no eye issues, nor any sign of heatstroke; she progressed from fine to dead over about 36 hours. Last week we lost our favorite chicken due to aspergillosis, proven via necropsy from the wonderful folks at the Gonzales TX VMDL.
Well damn. Tammy actually just cried out, seized, and died. Sigh. I'll take her to the VMDL on Monday for a necropsy.
We're stumped, y'all. We keep a clean, fully shaded coop & run, have great ventilation from the nearly 100% hardware mesh construction, keep an industrial strength fan going day & night (see 100+ degree days), hemp bedding under the roost bars & we cover the fresh poop with new hemp 3-4 times/week, and our girls free range across our fully shaded 1/3 acre yard all day. We use feed tubes that hold about 3 weeks worth of food, keep electrolytes in water that's changed daily (often adding ice cubes), and give regular treats like watermelon, cantaloupe, and kale; one of the feed tubes holds mealworms they eat freely. My partner and I each have shoes on the porch that we wear only in the backyard & coop.
The majority of our babes that have passed (10 of 14) came from the same source, a local woman who had been recommended by others in our community. Two of the other four deaths were mature hens that died after bringing in our first batch from this local source; the other two came from a local feed store.
We've now got 2 new pullets (8-10 weeks old) + 8 new hatched chicks here--thankfully they're from a new source & have been vaccinated (Mareks, coccidia). We are making a few changes to our run to help with drainage, and are changing the feed tubes to hold only 1-2 weeks of food. We are really, really hopeful to turn things around and keep the rest of our chickies alive!!
Goodness, if you have any insight--either on what might have been going on with Tammy or what the heck might be going on with our flock in general, by all means please share. We are scratching our heads quite a lot over here.
We've got a 5-5.5 month old Easter Egger (Tammy) looking very poorly lately. About a week ago, after multiple 105 degree days here in Central TX, she was suffering more than normal from the heat. (Our EEs in general tend to pant the heaviest on these hoooootttt summer days, even more than our Brahma. Today's high temp of mid-90s helped break what was looking to be a record-setting heatwave.) We put her in a bit of cool water, submerging her legs, and she stayed there for about 10 minutes before she hopped out; at one point she even laid to the side a bit, getting some water up under her wing. For a few days afterward, she was looking good.
The day of her "bath" we noticed Tammy's eyes looked funny (see photo) with the pupil very large and not well-defined at the edges. Post-bath she spent a few days looking spry and lively, totally normal, but now she's definitely NOT okay. She's breathing heavy, what we call "tail breathing"--you know, when the whole body seems to be inhaling/exhaling. Heaving, almost. Yesterday she started lying with her head buried down in the ground and her tail straight up (she lifted her head up for the photo below).
Because of Tammy's eyes, Mareks is obviously a concern. Early July, another same aged Buff Orpington died after exhibiting very similar symptoms, although she showed no eye issues, nor any sign of heatstroke; she progressed from fine to dead over about 36 hours. Last week we lost our favorite chicken due to aspergillosis, proven via necropsy from the wonderful folks at the Gonzales TX VMDL.
Well damn. Tammy actually just cried out, seized, and died. Sigh. I'll take her to the VMDL on Monday for a necropsy.
We're stumped, y'all. We keep a clean, fully shaded coop & run, have great ventilation from the nearly 100% hardware mesh construction, keep an industrial strength fan going day & night (see 100+ degree days), hemp bedding under the roost bars & we cover the fresh poop with new hemp 3-4 times/week, and our girls free range across our fully shaded 1/3 acre yard all day. We use feed tubes that hold about 3 weeks worth of food, keep electrolytes in water that's changed daily (often adding ice cubes), and give regular treats like watermelon, cantaloupe, and kale; one of the feed tubes holds mealworms they eat freely. My partner and I each have shoes on the porch that we wear only in the backyard & coop.
The majority of our babes that have passed (10 of 14) came from the same source, a local woman who had been recommended by others in our community. Two of the other four deaths were mature hens that died after bringing in our first batch from this local source; the other two came from a local feed store.
We've now got 2 new pullets (8-10 weeks old) + 8 new hatched chicks here--thankfully they're from a new source & have been vaccinated (Mareks, coccidia). We are making a few changes to our run to help with drainage, and are changing the feed tubes to hold only 1-2 weeks of food. We are really, really hopeful to turn things around and keep the rest of our chickies alive!!
Goodness, if you have any insight--either on what might have been going on with Tammy or what the heck might be going on with our flock in general, by all means please share. We are scratching our heads quite a lot over here.
Never, never, never easy in my book, but especially hard when they are young and when you are not sure exactly why or if you could have prevented it.
