I have this hen that is about two years old and is a barred rock. All the sudden she started acting different looking like she can’t see an object as close near to her and just a couple of days ago she started to sleep outside standing up in the middle of the day when all my other chickens are somewhere else. She does eat from what I can tell she hasn’t lost a huge amount of weight but her comb in her face have became a lighter red color compared to all my others and become freezing to the touch (I don’t know if this is bad). She does drink some water and food when I was around with them last. She does move around but not as much as she used to and sometimes if she moves too quick she loses her balance or her leg will slip from underneath her. On the sleeping part I had a hen just three months ago start doing that behavior is perished from that. I’m trying to figure out a treatment or a possibility of what this could be. So I have an understanding of how to move forward. Any ideas on what it could be? I have attached photos of her as of today.
OyVey. Having had another bird die with similar symptoms and behaviors does not bode well. They can be very hard to diagnose, let alone treat. An avian vet might help, but they are few and far between, and costly. Only real way to find what is wrong is to have labs done on swabs, either by the vets reputable labs or a necropsy after death, most states Ag departments have this option. @ChickenCanoe is a whiz at finding appropriate lab facilities. But meanwhile...... This is what I do when a birds is acting off: I isolate bird in a wire cage within the coop for a day or two....so you can closely monitor their intake of food and water, crop function(checking at night and in morning before providing more feed), and their poops. Feel their abdomen, from below vent to between legs, for squishy or hard swelling. Best to put crate right in coop or run so bird is still 'with' the flock. I like to use a fold-able wire dog crate (24"L x 18"W x 21"H) with smaller mesh(1x2) on bottom of crate under tray. Then you can put tray underneath crate to better observe droppings without it being stepped in. If smaller mesh is carefully installed, tray can still be used inside crate.
There are just too many possibilities to speculate with those symptoms. It could easily be cancer. You have at least 2 labs in CO. Colorado State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (Main) 300 West Drake Road, Building C Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1644 Phone: 970-297-1281 Colorado State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory-Rocky Ford (Branch) 27847 County Road 21 Rocky Ford, Colorado 81067-9466 Phone: 719-254-6382