Hen is moving slowly with a wider gate than normal

[Vasicos1]

I have a hen who is about 3 years old. I noticed this morning she was a little slower than normal and walking with her legs a little further apart than my other ladies. It’s subtle but it doesn’t look like her normal gate to me. She did wander to the food dish and eat her breakfast like normal but I had to work today unfortunately so I didn’t get to monitor her through the day. This evening when I put them to bed I noticed she hadn’t jumped up to her normal perch but instead wanted to sleep on the ground.I also noticed she had quite a runny bum. Her poo is a normal colour but I can see the texture of the pellets almost like when you soak pellets and they go mushy. It was stuck in her feathers around her back end. I felt her abdomen to see if I could feel an egg but it actually feels quite squishy like there’s a buildup of fluid. I felt a few others and they all feel quite firm in this area so that’s definitely unusual. I’m not sure when she last laid an egg unfortunately because I have around 20 hens who all lay in the same coop and many who lay brown eggs just like her. I did notice a couple eggs in the last month that had a crinkled appearance and thin shells and I’m thinking it might have been her that laid them. I haven’t noticed one of those in the past week or two though so I thought I fixed the problem but maybe she just stopped laying because her issue got worse. Her crop feels fairly normal. It’s a little smaller than hers would normally be at this time of night but does feel like the right consistency. I will check again in the morning to see if it has emptied properly. I’m hoping it’s nothing too serious and she will be fine overnight but Does anyone know what could have caused these symptoms?

 

[SmiYa0126]

Hi! Can you give her a calcium citrate pill? Would it be at all possible to bring her in to monitor her eating and drinking?

 

[Razzlefrazzle]

A squishy abdomen is ascites (aka water belly). There are a number of reasons fluid could be building up (infection to heart issues to reproductive problems...) but once enough fluid has built up that the hen has trouble walking and roosting it needs to be drained off or the pressure building up inside on her organs will eventually kill her.

A vet could drain her and possibly narrow down the cause of the issue, but often ascites is a terminal condition and you will need to drain her periodically for the rest of her life as the fluid continues to build up. Lots of info on here and videos on youtube about how to drain if that's something you want to try.