Hen wont stand & diarrhea

[tangerine]

Hi everyone, I'm starting to get frustrated with this situation! A little over a week ago I found her sort of on her side, moving and nodding her head strangely, and getting pecked on by the others (one eye was closed). This hen seems to have had a mysterious health problem for a while, and we isolated her a couple times before and tried to work on her, but seems like she always has diarrhea and is really thin. I brought her inside, gave fluids, put her on antibiotics, and gave her food to tempt her. At first she was not eating or drinking, and her movements seemed really uncoordinated, but we encouraged her and got her going and she improved.

Now a week later she still will not stand. When I hold her up and try to get her to stand, she seems to have no inclination whatsoever! Her eye is open and normal again and she's gained strength to scoot around using her wings a little. She has stopped the odd nodding motions she was doing before. Her stools were a bit more firm at first, but now it's diarrhea again. No blood or weird colors in it, just brown & very watery. I have to clean out her entire box every time she goes. Any ideas of what else I can try? I've read about all sorts of chicken diseases, etc. and can never find one that sounds enough like what she has.

So to sum up, symptoms:
- diarrhea
- low weight
- can not stand
- has not layed in a while (she's about 5)

but...
- eating and drinking well
- face is normal now, no discharges
- her crop feels normal (not bloated or too hard)

Thanks for reading and for any advice!
Erin

 

[Alaskan]

How is she?

I would think either that she is simply at the end of her life, or that she has some kind of scary virus.

If your hens are true pets, you might want to have her checked out by a vet, and have her tested for the more common chicken viruses.

It must be hard to loose her after so many years together.

I am so sorry for what you must be going through.

 

[tangerine]

She's actually hanging in there, but things have been a little crazy. Like the day after I posted the original post, this hen's sister started getting sick as well! She would still stand but was a little off balance, and wouldn't come out of the house in the morning. She still seemed better than the first sick one was originally, but I took her out and tried to get her to eat although she wouldn't, but she was drinking. It was later in the day and I figured I would try again in the morning, but next morning she was dead!

This all led me to investigate the possibility of worms. Although I had never seen any indication of worms from their droppings, this was the only other possibility I could find that matched the symptoms. So we gave her a wormer and waited.. It has been another few days and she still has questionable droppings, will not stand, and seems so thin. But, I'm OK with spending my time to keep her comfortable (I'm a teacher and I'm off for the summer). She does have energy to get up on her "knees" and moves herself around with her beak and by flapping her wings to get to the food & water. She also seems to be regrowing a lot of feathers in her neck & back. Possibly they had been pulled out by the others as she was getting picked on.

The other development was that today I actually SAW some long roundworms in some droppings from my bantams (which are kept separately), which made me think that maybe I was right about the worms. She is like a pet, but I do not have the money to go through vet tests so for now we plan to just keep doing what we're doing and see how things go since she does have some life in her and doesn't seem to be in pain.

Thanks for asking! I know some will think we're crazy for trying to keep her going, but we can't help but want to try to help her any way we can.

 

[suebee]

Get some Eprinex. I draw up .025 ML for each bantam silkie, .050 for standards, squirt between the shoulders. It rids worms, lice, mites, etc.
Never lost a bird from internal/external parasites since.

 

[Alaskan]

I hope that works for you.