First of all, I've read through a lot of these posts and fully intend to take the bird to be necropsied if possible, but unfortunately I have to be at work this afternoon and tomorrow so I'm worried about my other birds in the meantime. Any advice at all is welcome!
She is a white Brahma, adult, same size as most of my other hens. This morning I came outside to feed them and the others are all acting normal (flock of 9 hens and no roos), but the bird in question was standing with her head turned around and buried in her back feathers, like she might do if sleeping. She normally doesn't like to be petted but when I touched her she didn't move away or look at me. I pushed her a little, gently, and she staggered a bit but didn't do anything else. I moved the feathers to see her face and her eyes were almost white. Until this morning she has been fine, very perky... anyway, I came inside and called a vet to make an appointment, but when I looked out the kitchen window I could see her lying or falling down. I went back to the coop and she was lying on her side, face out of her feathers but her legs were sort of slowly kicking. I took her out of the run.
She had no bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma, and nothing unusual has happened lately. I feed them Layena feed and sometimes scratch or kitchen scraps, although they hadn;t had any scraps for awhile so there was nothing weird in the food. They live in a coop that's about 8 by 4 feet, raised off the ground with a mesh floor and perches, and a run that's about 12 feet square and completely enclosed by chickenwire so there' no contact with outside animals. They have open access to come and go between the coop and run.
I haven't checked droppings yet because of being concerned with the hen but I will go out and check shortly. There was no treatment because it happened so fast. I can take a picture if it will help but she just looks normal except for the foggy eyes.
The only issue that might even remotely be of concern is that I increased my flock a few months ago and they all stopped laying. One of the new birds died after she had a toe pulled off by a raccoon (which is why I know the coop is completely impervious to other animals- I turned it into fort knox after that), but there hasn't been any kind of a problem since then. Only one of the birds has begun laying, but it's the start of cold weather so I wasn't too concerned. But now I'm worried about the remaining 8 (2 RIRs, 3 Silkies, 1 Aurucana, 1 Golden-laced Wyandotte, 1 Dominique) getting sick. Help??
She is a white Brahma, adult, same size as most of my other hens. This morning I came outside to feed them and the others are all acting normal (flock of 9 hens and no roos), but the bird in question was standing with her head turned around and buried in her back feathers, like she might do if sleeping. She normally doesn't like to be petted but when I touched her she didn't move away or look at me. I pushed her a little, gently, and she staggered a bit but didn't do anything else. I moved the feathers to see her face and her eyes were almost white. Until this morning she has been fine, very perky... anyway, I came inside and called a vet to make an appointment, but when I looked out the kitchen window I could see her lying or falling down. I went back to the coop and she was lying on her side, face out of her feathers but her legs were sort of slowly kicking. I took her out of the run.
She had no bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma, and nothing unusual has happened lately. I feed them Layena feed and sometimes scratch or kitchen scraps, although they hadn;t had any scraps for awhile so there was nothing weird in the food. They live in a coop that's about 8 by 4 feet, raised off the ground with a mesh floor and perches, and a run that's about 12 feet square and completely enclosed by chickenwire so there' no contact with outside animals. They have open access to come and go between the coop and run.
I haven't checked droppings yet because of being concerned with the hen but I will go out and check shortly. There was no treatment because it happened so fast. I can take a picture if it will help but she just looks normal except for the foggy eyes.
The only issue that might even remotely be of concern is that I increased my flock a few months ago and they all stopped laying. One of the new birds died after she had a toe pulled off by a raccoon (which is why I know the coop is completely impervious to other animals- I turned it into fort knox after that), but there hasn't been any kind of a problem since then. Only one of the birds has begun laying, but it's the start of cold weather so I wasn't too concerned. But now I'm worried about the remaining 8 (2 RIRs, 3 Silkies, 1 Aurucana, 1 Golden-laced Wyandotte, 1 Dominique) getting sick. Help??
