HELP!!!! Brown Shaver hen, lethargic, closed eyes and not eating.

[IrmavN]

I'm fairley new to the chicken keeping thing. I live in New Zealand and have some backyard girls. They are 2-3 years old. They have a comfortable coop and after they lay their eggs I let them free range on the boardering reserve, where they get to scratch about as they wish!

Izzy as my daughters named the hen is lethargic and sit with her head down and her eyes as permanently shut. I have seperated her from the others and she is now ling inside the house in a box, nice and comffy and warm. She is very thin, but I see no worms in her stool. She never opens her eyes herself, only when I pick her up so will open them and blink and shut them. Her crop was empty 2 days ago and thats when I started force feeding her...now there is some food in her crop.

I did discover mite/lice on her, gave her a bath and dried her. I sprayed her with a natural lice/mite killer, made of geranium. It seemed to have erradicated all the mite/lice, have not seen the little fellows scurrying around.

She has the same symptoms for 8 days now. At first I gave her water and chicken crumble diluted in water, but her symptoms got worse. The last 2 days I have been drastic and forced fed her by opening her mouth and feeding her Chicken pelltes and maize and I gave her some meat scraps for proteien. She shows a slight bit of improvement, by drinking some water if I rub her on the head, but will just sit there in the same dozy/sleepy position if I don't feed her.

I lost Peaches(Brown Shaver) about a month or so ago. Presented with the same symptoms....thought she was egg bound...but she died 2 days later....also thin to the bone, but no worms in the stools. Could it be the small redish mite/lice on them???

At first Izzy's stools where watery, but since I fed her water and food, the consistency is more solid. Still green and white, but at least I can see some of the grit/rougher food particles.

I am intending to try as hard as I can to help her...thought I will give her some boiled egg tomorrow...some more protein to help build some weight. I see 2 other chickens are also thin by the feel of their chest bone...sprayed them all for mite/lice yesterday. Most of them lay eggs, have 1 or 2 moulting. izzy is not laying any eggs.

Please help, we are very attached to all the girls...

 

[CayugaLover]

i'm sorry about your losses... welcome to BYC!! i've never heard of a case quite as drastic as this... i am no expert, but what i would do is i would quarentine her, which it sounds like you did, and i would post on BYC, which you did, and i would, if her case didn't improve, give her antibiotics. i try not to reccomend antibiotics, but sometimes an antibioticed chicken is better than a dead chicken. *shrug* just my thoughts.

 

[tadpole98]

Im not an expert either, and I really dont know what to do, but this sounds bad. But now that you know they have lice/mites, I would go ahead and 'treat' them for that. Bathe them all and dry them. Clean out their coop really well, then put Damascus Earth, otherwise known as DE, all over. Where they dust, in their coop, just not in the nest boxes because that could get a little messy.
Also, might try deworming them.If they are thin then they might have worms? Put Applecider vinegar in their water, and also I HEARD (havent tested it out yet) that hot peppers and/or garlic deworm.
Good luck!

 

[IrmavN]

Thanks for the advice! Still no better. I do put ACV in drinkwater. I fed her an egg this morning. She drank some water and I added some molasses for "energy". She does not want to eat or drink herself and just sit in the same spot on the lawn in the shade the whole day. I googled on "Condition" rating for chickens and she falls in the zero group...no reserves.
Her crop was not empty this morning, a golf ball size hard lump, I did massages it a little, but it seems to stay. She passed a few stools today, semi hard, green and white... I really feel that I have hit a wall....

 

[tadpole98]

I would also feed her some yogurt, that helps ALOT. Plus, they love yogurt.