Hen unable to stand then seizure and death

[ABernard]

My barred rock hen, who was about 7 months old, had started acting weird 4 days ago (seemed to be a little lethargic but eating and drinking, walking around). About 2 days ago she was back to normal, but then yesterday morning was just laying in a corner, very lethargic with a drooped pale comb. She was unable to stand and had clearish diarrhea.

After reading some posts on here we tried a couple things.. gave her a warm bath and tried to check if she was egg bound but did not feel anything. Next we gave her some vitamins we bought at a local feed store. We kept her inside in a large bin with food and water.

She continued to get worse.. not eating or drinking, unable to stand, droopy/pale comb, eyes mostly closed. Today we were going to try to get her to drink and when we picked her up clear fluid came running out of her mouth. We put her back down and a few seconds later she was slightly wheezing seemed to have a seizure and died within a few seconds.

I cannot seem to find any answers as to what could have been wrong with her based on symptoms. All other chickens seem fine. Hoping I can get some answers on here. Thanks!

 

[QuailExpert]

im sorry that happened, unfortunately i cant help you here. i hope someone is able to come through and diagnose this. maybe some research on the symptoms can help for now.

 

[4 ever Orpington]

My barred rock hen, who was about 7 months old, had started acting weird 4 days ago (seemed to be a little lethargic but eating and drinking, walking around). About 2 days ago she was back to normal, but then yesterday morning was just laying in a corner, very lethargic with a drooped pale comb. She was unable to stand and had clearish diarrhea.

After reading some posts on here we tried a couple things.. gave her a warm bath and tried to check if she was egg bound but did not feel anything. Next we gave her some vitamins we bought at a local feed store. We kept her inside in a large bin with food and water.

She continued to get worse.. not eating or drinking, unable to stand, droopy/pale comb, eyes mostly closed. Today we were going to try to get her to drink and when we picked her up clear fluid came running out of her mouth. We put her back down and a few seconds later she was slightly wheezing seemed to have a seizure and died within a few seconds.

I cannot seem to find any answers as to what could have been wrong with her based on symptoms. All other chickens seem fine. Hoping I can get some answers on here. Thanks!

Sorry for your loss.

 

[rebrascora]

Hi and welcome to the BYC community. I am so sorry that you are joining us in such sad circumstances.

Those symptoms suggest there may have been a blockage in her digestive tract and, when you picked her up, she refluxed and aspirated some of her crop contents into her lungs, which caused her to have respiratory distress/failure perhaps leading to heart failure.
Why she had a digestive tract blockage or impaction and where it was located.... ie in her crop or lower down in her gut, would only be resolved by doing a necropsy. It may have been a reproductive issue like an egg stuck.... sometimes their first eggs can be shell less so you might not feel it by doing an internal examination. It could have been caused by a tumour or perhaps her crop was blocked because she had been eating a lot of straw or hay. Someone here on BYC recently gave their hens a flake of alfalfa and one of them gorged on it and got an impacted crop. It can happen so easily. Unfortunately chickens tend to hide illness until they are too weak to make the effort, so she may have been struggling with this illness for longer than you think.

There are state facilities and universities that will do necropsies on chickens for a reasonable fee..... private veterinary practices will probably be much more expensive. It is also possible for you to cut open your own bird and take a look although I appreciate that not everyone can get their head around that. If you do not know much about chicken anatomy, there are You Tube videos on how to do a necropsy on a chicken and if you take photos of what you see and in particular anything that looks abnormal, there are threads here on BYC where we share such photos and discuss the likely diagnosis. There are quite a few very common illnesses that show up regularly enough to be quite easy to spot without lab facilities. It can be very beneficial to establish a cause of death because sometimes there are thinks that it highlights which may make a change of management or diet beneficial for the surviving flock members. Things like an impaction due to alfalfa or a heavy worm burden... yuk I know but relevant... or significant levels of fat due to an imbalance in the diet..... we all like to treat out girls a little too much and it is not good for them just like it is not good for us.... but difficult to tell obesity with all those feathers to hide it and of course we are used to seeing supermarket chickens which are so plump whereas layers should be much leaner.

Anyway, I hope my response has given you some food for thought but none of us can be sure what caused her death without a necropsy.
I hope it is a long time before you encounter another such tragedy in your flock.

Best wishes

Barbara

 

[ABernard]

Hi and welcome to the BYC community. I am so sorry that you are joining us in such sad circumstances.

Those symptoms suggest there may have been a blockage in her digestive tract and, when you picked her up, she refluxed and aspirated some of her crop contents into her lungs, which caused her to have respiratory distress/failure perhaps leading to heart failure.
Why she had a digestive tract blockage or impaction and where it was located.... ie in her crop or lower down in her gut, would only be resolved by doing a necropsy. It may have been a reproductive issue like an egg stuck.... sometimes their first eggs can be shell less so you might not feel it by doing an internal examination. It could have been caused by a tumour or perhaps her crop was blocked because she had been eating a lot of straw or hay. Someone here on BYC recently gave their hens a flake of alfalfa and one of them gorged on it and got an impacted crop. It can happen so easily. Unfortunately chickens tend to hide illness until they are too weak to make the effort, so she may have been struggling with this illness for longer than you think.

There are state facilities and universities that will do necropsies on chickens for a reasonable fee..... private veterinary practices will probably be much more expensive. It is also possible for you to cut open your own bird and take a look although I appreciate that not everyone can get their head around that. If you do not know much about chicken anatomy, there are You Tube videos on how to do a necropsy on a chicken and if you take photos of what you see and in particular anything that looks abnormal, there are threads here on BYC where we share such photos and discuss the likely diagnosis. There are quite a few very common illnesses that show up regularly enough to be quite easy to spot without lab facilities. It can be very beneficial to establish a cause of death because sometimes there are thinks that it highlights which may make a change of management or diet beneficial for the surviving flock members. Things like an impaction due to alfalfa or a heavy worm burden... yuk I know but relevant... or significant levels of fat due to an imbalance in the diet..... we all like to treat out girls a little too much and it is not good for them just like it is not good for us.... but difficult to tell obesity with all those feathers to hide it and of course we are used to seeing supermarket chickens which are so plump whereas layers should be much leaner.

Anyway, I hope my response has given you some food for thought but none of us can be sure what caused her death without a necropsy.
I hope it is a long time before you encounter another such tragedy in your flock.

Best wishes

Barbara

Thank you so much for your response! We do have some hay in their outside area so maybe that’s what it was. We have already removed it all. We give them grit now and then. Also, we just bought new food the other day so we will switch that ASAP. We were feeding dumor and we are switching to Purina omega 3. Again, thank you. Hopefully we can prevent anything like this from happening again