Hen won’t stand up- stumbling yesterday

[CJ20]

Hi- thanks in advance for any help. This is first time we’ve had a sick/injured chicken in our backyard flock.

background- have 3 2 year old hens that we merged with a new flock of 6 16-20 week old pullets. They lived next to each other for two months with hardwire separating the two flocks, occasionally we let them free range together and the OGs let the littles know who’s boss but nothing major other than a couple lost feathers. We merged the two flocks a week ago into a new run and remodeled coop. Again, no major skirmishes, but the youngers def stay away from the OGs. There was one time when we first merged, one of the OGs sat on top of the younger hen I’m concerned about. We quickly broke that up and never saw that again.

I have a 20 week old olive egger who was sitting on floor of run yesterday- she’s skittish so I was concerned when I didn’t see her move away from older gals. She started laying last week right after the merge and has laid every day, including yesterday. She was stumbling when trying to walk. I isolated her into an area with food and water. She was eating, drinking, scratching around, Pooping, laid an egg. Seemed totally fine except for the stumbling. I gave her electrolytes in water and some multi vitamins in water.

Today- she’s not walking at all and can’t seem to support her weight at all on her legs/feet. When I tried to get her to stand, she immediately sat back down. She’s also not eating or drinking today. I’ve attached a pic of her this morning.

Im wondering if she got injured somehow or something else? Some kind of illness?

Any advice?
Thank you!!

 

[AltonaAcres]

Ugh. Looks like Mareks

 

[CJ20]

Ugh. Looks like Mareks

Thanks for responding. She got vaccinated as a chick, could she still get Mareks?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

20 week old olive egger who was sitting on floor of run yesterday

She started laying last week right after the merge and has laid every day, including yesterday. She was stumbling when trying to walk. I isolated her into an area with food and water. She was eating, drinking, scratching around, Pooping, laid an egg. Seemed totally fine except for the stumbling.

Today- she’s not walking at all and can’t seem to support her weight at all on her legs/feet. When I tried to get her to stand, she immediately sat back down. She’s also not eating or drinking today.

How is she doing?
Feel inside her vent to make sure she's not egg bound.
Get some photos of her poop.
Check her crop first thing in the morning to make sure it's empty. I would try to get her hydrated. Give her 1/4 tablet B-Complex for a few days.
Check her over for any injury, swelling of the joints, etc.
It could be Marek's. The vaccine helps prevent the formation of tumors, but does not prevent infection from the virus.

 

[CJ20]

Thanks so much for your input. Here are a couple pics from today. I put her in a sling and she seems much happier. She’s not really drinking today but eating tomatoes and fruit, some grass so hoping she is getting some hydration that way. I’m going to try some scrambled eggs with B complex in it.

she is acting pretty normal with the exception of not being able to stand on her own. She pecks through the grass, pecked my lab who came up to check out her in the sling. Munched a whole tomato this morning. I’ve gotten some meal worms in her but not much protein. I’ll keep trying different foods.

I ran hands over legs and thighs- couldn’t feeL anything and she didn’t object. Wonder if it’s her back or hip joints.

Please let me know if you think of anything else or see in her pics that I’m missing. I talked to a chicken “expert” at local feed store and she was perplexed- thinks maybe an injury of some kind.

thanks again!