Help please! 2 Questions for my one and only hen .

[enruiwe]

My hen suddenly cant stand up anymore , and it is lying down with its eyes closed!

when i saw that , i tot it was her dying moment as she is 6 this year.

when she tries to stand , it seems her legs were weak or something , making her unable to stand. And her breathing seems heavy (gasping for air).

so i decided to at least let her die outside of her cage , and carried her out .

After an hour or so, i put it back in the cage. After 3 hours or so , she stood up ! but her tails are down ( normally its up ) .

Then the next day , it became normal again wth eyes wide open.




Ahh~ it scared the daylights out of my soul . Can someone explain this behaviour if you know ?

another question , how long is the lifespan of a chicken.

 

[chicknmania]

Well, for one thing, she's not old particularly. We have a rooster who's going on 9 and I've heard and read that chickens can live 17 and up. As I've discovered recently, there's about a million things that could be wrong. Chickens are really good at acting normal when they're not...and also sometimes they do strange things and and then that's the end of it. If she were mine I'd keep her confined for a few days, let her out a little as you have been while you watch her, and put her on vitamins/electrolytes. I read somewhere that if you stare at a chicken to try and look for symptoms, you won't see anything; you have to pretend like you're not watching them, sort of watch out of the corner of your eye, so they will be more likely to let their defenses down. Also sometimes if they are having breathing problems they will be more noticeable at night when they're sleeping; you'll hear them breathing sometimes at night, but not notice anything during the day. That might be one way for you to tell if her breathing problem has gone away.

 

[chicknmania]

Also, don't know what kind of vet resources you have, but you could have a stool sample checked for worms, or even look at her poo yourself to see if there are any visible; also check for lice; these are simple things you could try; maybe check for egg bound, too?

 

[dlhunicorn]

Does she lay irregularly (thinking of age here)...?
I ask because those parts will "shrink" over the course of time and then if the bird suddenly has an egg ... well you see my point.

 

[enruiwe]

its been a long tiem sicne she last laid eggs , but the nxt day after tt incident(yesterday) she laid an semi- shelless egg

 

[Wes in Tx]

She was egg bound on the soft shelled egg. Get some calcium in her either through oyster shell or a calcium supplement.