Hen not laying with droopy comb-Egg bound???

[Egg_newton]

1) What type of bird , age and weight.

Golden Comet hen. I'm not sure how old she is. Was already grown when we got her about three months ago. Ppl I got her from said she was an adult when they got her too. She has lost a lot of weight. I'm not sure what she weighed when we got her but she is only about 2.5lbs now.

2) What is the behavior, exactly.

She is not active but not lathargic. She sits in the nesting box but hasn't layed anything in weeks. I don't think she is broody tho.

3) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma.

No signs of trauma

4) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation.

I don't know if it maybe feed related. Most of my other girls are pullets so I have been feeding them started/grower feed and supplemnting the three older girls with oyster shell. I have three that are of laying age. After a while everybody stopped laying. Pullets are older now about four and a half months old. I swithched to layer feed. My other two hens started laying again but the GC has not. The last few eggs she did lay were very thin shelled

5) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all.

I just gave her some mealworms and she gobbled those down but was not interested at all in regular food even when I mixed a can of tuna with it.

6) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc.

I don't know how her poop looks. She is in with 12 other chickens. As a whole I haven't noticed any irregular poop. He bottom has quite a bit of poo on it tho. I checked outside of her vent and don't see anything protuding

7) What has been the treatment you have administered so far?

I gave her an external and internal

exam. She is all feather and bones. I did not see or feel any masses or pieces of egg shell.

8 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet?

I will be treating her myself

9) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help.

No pics just a poor skinny comet with a droopy comb and poopy butt.

10) Describe the housing/bedding in use.

she is in a secured coop at night. Let out in the morning into the run that is moved once a week or so to allow for fresh grass and let out to free range on the weekends and of the afternoon.
also, everone was treated for worms/lice/mites last weekend. Everyone else appears to be doing just fine.

 

[Elite Silkies]

I would bring her in and give her a warm bath. If her bottom is poopy she needs to cleaned. You need to pull her from the flock and keep her inside until she is well again. You may want to give her a warm dark place.

You can boil or scramble her some eggs. You can blend the eggs up with the shells and scramble them. That will give her protein and calcium.

You can give her some Poly Vi Sol and some Vitamin E.

ACV in her water.

Hopefully, someone else can give you more advice.

You can put some mineral oil or ky jelly in her vent and check to see if you can feel an egg. You will need to use rubber gloves.

 

[Homeonthefarm]

You certainly should separate her from the flock. So that you can prevent that anything that she might have won't spread to the other chickens and yet worse, won't contaminate your coop or run.

Chicken diseases are puzzling because most have all the same clinical signs...

In some conditions chickens seem to be eating but they can't really swallow. Softly feel her crop with your fingers and you'll know how much she is eating. If her poops are greenish that would indicate high fever. Sometimes I give a sick chicken a couple drops of a cold medicine such as those to lower fever to manage to get them to eat... (Ain't necessary to say that I'm not a vet and that's only my ackward way of doing things alright?)

When a chicken stops laying, seems alright and to be eating but looses weight all the same, to the point of becoming skin and bones and eventually dies... I would get suspicious about "going light syndrome"

 

[Egg_newton]

What is going light syndrome? I did a search of BYC, Yahoo, and an Organic chicken Yahoo Group and didn't find anything.