Hen Drunk Acting but Alert 8 months old. Please help I am new to this

barngem

Songster
10 Years
Jun 19, 2009
110
0
109
Northern Michigan
I have 6 chickens
one of my sumatra hens yesterday came out of the coop and wobled around like her foot was asleep and acted frightened. I picked her up and got her settled down and then she was fine for the rest of the day. Today she comes out of the coop the same way. She seems alert but she has not eaten much and she can walk but walks like she is drunk. She and my 3 other sumatras are 8 months old. One hen has begun to lay.
I have two other chickens that are bantams one hen one rooster. They have all been together for 4-5 months. They have been healthy and great up to this point. I got the sumatra chicks from Meyer hatchery, I dont know if they were vacinated a friend ordered them. She seems light in weight. Her breast is somewhat sharp they get scratch layer mash lettuce carrots oatmeal bread alfalfa, and so on.
I see no parasites. She does have some poo on her but it is white. The darn rooster tried to get her while she was laying in the pen poor girl. She talks and is allert. We have brought her to the house and she acts hungry and eats yogurt and oatmeal.

It is winter here and it has been cold at night, -3 night before and 0 last night. I recently put a small heat matt in the coop but it was about 22 in the coop this morning. It seems they were all on the floor of the coop this morning and I dont know if they got down there last night or this morining when they saw me come to the barn. There is some frost on the coop walls this am but there often is. They have straw in their coop and straw on the pen floor.

I have read other posts and cant find anything that seems to answer the question so if anyone has some ideas please help
 
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Odd symptoms, I would keep her inside, but not too warm. About 40 degrees would be good--if she gets too warm, it will be really hard on her to go back outside again. 22 degrees in the coop is not bad for healthy chickens. The weight loss is not good--I would cut out the scratch and bread for now, make sure they are getting enough protein. Make sure they have oyster shell available. You can mix her crumble with plain yogurt, that would be a good thing for her right now. Check all the droppings very carefully for worms, and better, get a fecal float done. Keep us posted on how she is behaving etc...Is there a discharge from her vent?
 
I use 2 heat lamps in my coop to keep my birds warm. I got them from the Home Hardware. I bought the infra red lights (they are RED in color, and I believe are meant for ppl to hang over their showers to keep comfy), which are nice and warm, and also do not disrupt the birds at night. Make sure your fixture can accommodate the bulb (watts). I would also stick to proper grain rations (grower/maintenance), no junk fillers or treats like bread (as mentioned above). The birds need good, substantial food since they will be using a lot of energy keeping warm. Make sure they ground is dry, and doesn't get wet from the frost/snow that might get in. Make sure there are no drafts. I have read of someone's bird wobbling and acting drunk- it was because it was eating fermented oranges from the compost. Make sure your birds are not eating rotten fruit, or any spoiled food for that matter.
Good luck!
 

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