HELP! Lethargic chicken, possible egg binding!

[Beastie]

Unfortunately I don't have any Epsom salt at the moment but I can try and pick some up tomorrow. None of the vets within an hour's drive will even look at a chicken stool.

 

[subhanalah]

Don't tell them it's a chicken poop? Say it's from a canary or something? Poop is poop and the organisms all look similar to one another. They have a BOOK with pictures of what to look for, even in bird droppings. Lazy.

 

[lisa67steve99]

Not every time, but in some instances watery green poop can be dehydration. I had a Buff Orpington recently who was sick and dehydrated due to the high heat in our area and her poop was watery and green. I did give her small amounts of Gatorade and epsom salt water. She pulled through. I hope your hen does as well.

 

[Beastie]

Me too, that makes me wonder if something else had her not feeling up to par and she made it worse by just laying around and not drinking. Some of her poops now are almost completely watery but she had also been drinking a lot today so much so that she bent her head down to eat and had some water come up (at least I assume that's what that was from after reading another post on here) the ones that worry me are the milky looking poops.

 

[Beastie]

Okay, here's an update. I'm kind of at a loss. Yesterday she seemed like she was peeking up quite a bit. She didn't seem to be eating her dry fees so I soaked some overnight and she gobbled it down. I gave her another soak and her abdomen seems kinda tight externally but I didn't feel anything internally. I took her outside for a bit after her soak to dry in the sun and she seemed to enjoy eating spider webs off of my daughter's climber toy. She was back to making her bweeerk noises at me and I was contemplating letting her back out soon. The only thing that seemed abnormal yesterday was that I went in the night before last to check on her at bedtime and she seemed to be sleeping standing up. Well she did that again last night, I only saw her laying down once all day yesterday. Now today she seemed really tired, making noises quieter again and holding her wings out to her sides like she is hot (the room she's in stays 75-78 degrees) so she can't be hot. She didn't seem interested in her wet food this morning so I made her a scrambled egg and gave her a cherry tomato sinc they're her favorite. She ate a little bit of the egg but I think she only purposely ate the tomato. She drank a lot of water and drooled/spit some of it up again. I put a little bit of yard dirt in there do she has grit as well as a little box with some pine shavings (hoping she would lay down) she kicked some of the shavings out and that's where she was laying the one time I saw her lay down yesterday. Today I added a log since she usually sleeps perched with the others but she isn't using it so far. HELP! I'm running out of ideas.

 

[Owlgirl7]

It definitely isn't egg binding now. She would have either layed the egg by now or passed on. So that leaves that she must have some sort of other injury or disease. Maybe you should continue to keep her quarantined....

 

[emmawhelan]

I woke up this morning and this sounds like my chicken. I picked her up with no resistance from her... she isnt moving her feet when i touch them, her head/neck is hanging and she's closing her eyes. is this binding, what is soaking?

 

[emmawhelan]

Took a half day at work to come back and check on her. I'm bathing her now, she's had an egg on the floor of the roosting house... shes still lethargic. Don't know what to do with her. If anyone can help, please do!

 

[ten chicks]

Have you checked her for crop issues,impacted or sour? If she recently laid an egg(in above post you mentioned she laid an egg on floor) then she is not egg bound. What does her poop look like?

 

[emmawhelan]

After some research I did come across impacted crops. I've now fully emptied the crop - the contents were smelly but not revolting - so i've ruled out sour crop. Without the fluid the crop is now very small, when I massage it I can feel some gritty bits inside but nothing that feel's like a ball of food. I do feed her small amounts of oyster shell as she only free ranges 1-2 hrs a day.

I read that white maggots were good for impacted crops, I was planning on getting her some probiotic yoghurt too. However she has no appetite. About 10 minutes after emptying the fluid from her crop she has drank about 100ml of water. I don't want to keep her off the water and let her become dehydrated, but i dont want to put her through the crop emptying again!