Help hen is breathing hard

[starrmar006]

She is obviously very sick. Watery eyes sounds like a respiratory infection, but it usually causes sneezing or coughing as well. Check her crop to see if it is emptying overnight, and it should not be felt by morning. It would feel full at the end of a day of eating and drinking. But if it is full and firm or puffy, she might have a crop problem such as impacted crop or sour crop. Sour crop would cause really stinky breath and some vomiting, which you have already described. They can’t get enough nutrients to pass through the digestive system when the crop or gizzard is not functioning.

I have lost a few hens who have been suffering from reproductive disorders, such as internal laying, egg yolk peritonitis, ascites, or oviduct cancer. They sometimes developed impacted or crop, later sour crop, from the pressure on the abdominal organs.

If a vet is possible, they might help with a diagnosis, but I am afraid that she may be dying. The Poultry NutriDrench vitamins can be given orally a drop at a time up to 2 ml per day. If you can check her crop and let us know how it feels, that will help.

View attachment 1622061

She has no crop this morning and her abdomen is not swollen she is really skinny and cold the heat lamp is not helping I want to being her into the house but my parents says it sinks in the house when ever there is a chicken in here.

 

[starrmar006]

I looked into her throat and I saw this black stuff in the back of her throat

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Does that black stuff look like it could come out? Can you take a q-tip and see if it's loose?

@casportpony @Eggcessive @dawg53

I do not think I've seen something that dark before

 

[Eggcessive]

That black material might be old blood or it could be melanoma, a type of cancer, but I have not seen that before. I would not try to force feed her water. You could hold water to her beak and dip her beak in it for her to drink some. But I think she is probably dying. I am so sorry, but I would try and make her comfortable.

 

[micstrachan]

I’m so sorry about your hen. Is she still with us?

 

[starrmar006]

She's gone (dead)

 

[Eggcessive]

So sorry for your loss. If you refrigerate the body, not freeze, you may be able to call your state poultry vet for a necropsy. You can sometimes open them up yourself, and get an idea on what killed them sometimes, if it is something obvious. Take pictures of organs if you do that, and we might be able to help.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

She's gone (dead)

I'm very sorry for your loss
You did the best you could to try to help her, you made her as comfortable as you could and gave her warmth.
I agree, it would be good to find out the cause of the dark/black material that was inside her beak.

If you have other chickens, you may want to check the insides of their beaks as well if she shared water stations with them. Clean out and sanitize all your water stations too.

 

[Trux]

Sorry for your loss We all as chicken keepers have to deal with this on a sometimes frequent basis. It never gets easy. I hope you can get her to a lab to figure out what happened.

 

[KClivlaughlove]

You never did tell us how her crop felt - does it have anything in it this morning?
Have you introduced new chickens within the last 30 days?

Breath that smells bad, along with watery eyes and the other symptoms you describe, I would say she has a respiratory illness.
Could be Infectious Coryza, Mycoplasma, Infectious Bronchitis, ILT or another illness that chickens can have.
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044

If she is still in respiratory distress, I would be careful getting fluids into her, but she needs to stay hydrated.

With this being so close to Christmas, I don't know if you can see a vet, but that would be best. You can try giving her Tylan50 which can be found in most feed stores like Tractor Supply. Dosage is .25ml per pound of weight given orally 3 times a day for 5 days.
Since there is a bad odor, she may have more than one thing going on or it could just be respiratory illness. Sour crop comes to mind, canker too but respiratory illnesses like Infectious Coryza is supposed to smell bad. If it's Coryza, the Tylan50 may help but a sulfa drug is a better choice of treatment. You can get that from your vet or order it online.

Let us know how she's doing.

Isn't an RX required for Sulfa? No vets in my area take chickens at all. 2½ hour trip 1 way to the ONLY vet I'm aware of (and believe me...I've searched alot!)