freerangehappyhens
Hatching
- May 27, 2024
- 2
- 0
- 6
I have grown up with chickens my whole life and was recently asked to petsit 4 newly adopted hens for a friend. I'm not sure exactly how old they are but I think they are relatively new egg layers so maybe around 30 weeks? The first day hen sitting I noticed one Rhode Island Red was quite lethargic and removed from the others. I let her do her thing the first day and just monitored her, but last night I removed her from the roost. She is significantly lighter than the others, refused to eat or drink, is having extremely liquidy poops, and her crop was very mushy, but didn't feel overly large. I asked her owner about it and she, a very new chicken owner, said that she had been noticing how weird the hen had been acting and thought she was sick. I pulled her into a separate space for the night and gave her a crop massage before bed, during which I could hear lots of gurgling but didn't necessarily notice any foul odors. Before we went to bed I noticed she was able to pass a firmer poop.
This morning her crop was empty so I gave her a little bit of food soaked in water (she ate less than 1/4 cup) and some water, both of which she gobbled up. As she was eating/drinking I could hear gurgling sounds coming from her crop area and she started becoming lethargic again, falling asleep standing there just after eating. I felt her crop and it was a bit larger, as she had just eaten, but still very mushy. I'm keeping her separated from the others for now but am not sure how to proceed. I'm afraid she has been sick for awhile and is now malnourished. Can I feed her regularly and continue crop massages if it's emptying normally overnight? The mushiness and the gurgling is concerning me as far as her crop goes, I'm thinking her lethargy could be related to malnutrition due to an untreated crop issue?
Any info helps!
This morning her crop was empty so I gave her a little bit of food soaked in water (she ate less than 1/4 cup) and some water, both of which she gobbled up. As she was eating/drinking I could hear gurgling sounds coming from her crop area and she started becoming lethargic again, falling asleep standing there just after eating. I felt her crop and it was a bit larger, as she had just eaten, but still very mushy. I'm keeping her separated from the others for now but am not sure how to proceed. I'm afraid she has been sick for awhile and is now malnourished. Can I feed her regularly and continue crop massages if it's emptying normally overnight? The mushiness and the gurgling is concerning me as far as her crop goes, I'm thinking her lethargy could be related to malnutrition due to an untreated crop issue?
Any info helps!