How to feed / care for a very sick hen

[ManueB]

Hello to all of you,

I am posting for the first time, and I apologize if I make some mistakes as English is not my language. I have tried searching on the forum but have not found information.

My two years old hen is very sick, probably dying. She is pooping green water every ten minutes, very lethargic and looking very ill. She has been sick for a week now getting worse. We put her in quarantine in a dog cage for 4 days now. She was rescued from a hen battery when she was only three months and she has had reproductive issues ever since she has started laying, so I think it may be ovarian cancer. My other five hens show no signs of illness, they are beginning to molt. I live in a small isolated village and we don't have a vet that specializes in chicken less than 2 hours drive away, so it is not possible. So we have been giving her a dewormer just in case but without much hope. We will wait the 7 days to see if it helps her but we are thinking of putting her down by that time if she does not get better because it is so sad to see her suffer so much.
My question is about feeding her and keeping her locked up. The only thing she will eat now, is a little egg and also cucumber which she is gobbling up. Should we just give her as much as she likes or restrict to try make her eat something else? I gave her two eggs yesterday and a whole cucumber and she ate all of it throughout the day, would this hurt her or is it best just to give her what she will eat?
Second question is that she is very depressed in her cage , she is a free ranging chicken not used to being locked up.I have been taking her outside one or two hour each day though it's only 15 degrees. She seems much more awake when she is outside even though she is not able to move much. Do you think it is ok or should we just let her doze inside the cage ?

I thank you very much for your help and wish all of you a pleasant day.

 

[cherrynberry]

Hello to all of you,

I am posting for the first time, and I apologize if I make some mistakes as English is not my language. I have tried searching on the forum but have not found information.

My two years old hen is very sick, probably dying. She is pooping green water every ten minutes, very lethargic and looking very ill. She has been sick for a week now getting worse. We put her in quarantine in a dog cage for 4 days now. She was rescued from a hen battery when she was only three months and she has had reproductive issues ever since she has started laying, so I think it may be ovarian cancer. My other five hens show no signs of illness, they are beginning to molt. I live in a small isolated village and we don't have a vet that specializes in chicken less than 2 hours drive away, so it is not possible. So we have been giving her a dewormer just in case but without much hope. We will wait the 7 days to see if it helps her but we are thinking of putting her down by that time if she does not get better because it is so sad to see her suffer so much.
My question is about feeding her and keeping her locked up. The only thing she will eat now, is a little egg and also cucumber which she is gobbling up. Should we just give her as much as she likes or restrict to try make her eat something else? I gave her two eggs yesterday and a whole cucumber and she ate all of it throughout the day, would this hurt her or is it best just to give her what she will eat?
Second question is that she is very depressed in her cage , she is a free ranging chicken not used to being locked up.I have been taking her outside one or two hour each day though it's only 15 degrees. She seems much more awake when she is outside even though she is not able to move much. Do you think it is ok or should we just let her doze inside the cage ?

I thank you very much for your help and wish all of you a pleasant day.

@Wyorp Rock

What are her symptoms?

 

[Eggcessive]

What is your location? Is that 15 degrees celsius or Fahrenheit? I would feed her the egg, but if you have a balanced chicken feed, you can offer some mixed with water into a mash. I would let her out as much as she wants, since she may have a serious disease. Most chickens like to be around others, so separate her in the cage if she is being picked on or bullied. What is the name of the wormer you are using? Chickens can suffer from a number of reproductive disorders, cancer, crop problems, and ascites (water belly.) Check her crop in early morning to see if it has emptied. Feel of her lower bellow to see if it is enlarged between her legs.

 

[ManueB]

Our current temperatures range from 10 to 15 degrees Celsius, I'm in the french prealps. We don't have access to the same over the counter meds here, I am giving her a human dewormer which contains fluobendazole, dosage adapted to her weight.
About a month after she started laying she began to get egg bound and lay a calcium coated egg and a soft shelled egg in a row after being sick for 24 hours. This happened over and over, sometimes for ten days in a row, sometimes only once in two weeks.We tried changing her feed, giving calcium supplement, giving her more protein but nothing really helped. However she seems to always recover and was always alive , quick and sassy in the meantime.
So we did not worry at first when she started being unwell again but this time it is different. She has had a thore throat for ten days but not anymore, she breathes normally. Her crop is empty in the morning and she does not lay anymore but is not egg bound, I can tell from her position. She is just very weak and emptying herself with liquid green poop every 15 mn. It is very difficult to medicate her because she refuses to drink water that has any thing mixed in it. We give the dewormer and a soft medication for diarrhea with a syringe. And I have tried feeding her hen feed mashed with water but to no avail. Yesterday she ate some mackerel, two eggs and a whole huge cucumber. Even scratch she refuses to eat.
Yesterday we took her outside for a good while and she did get some bugs and pecked at some greens. I'll do the same if it does not rain, at least it make her happy!
thanks again for your help and for reading all this!

 

[Lizzy733]

It is good that she is still eating on her own.

If she is eating and drinking and her crop is emptying, all good signs. Keep her on 'soft' foods. You can even try soaking her feed in something like Apple sauce or water. Pictures of the poop would be helpful.

Sometimes green can mean she's not eating enough, or it can be signs of internal parasites. Is there 'any' vet near you? Any vet should be able to test her poo for parasites. It does not need to be a bird specialist.

Keep a close eye on how her crop is draining and look out for yellow in the whites of her poop as this is a sign of either liver or kidney damage.

My hybrid hen just had something very similar, but she would not eat or drink on her own. She had been wormed and given a full round of coccidia treatment, but her symptoms only worsened. She had been inside and supported for almost two weeks and we decided to put her down today. She was a pet, so it is a tough call, but she was in pain and losing condition, so we did not want her to suffer. She was only 3 and came to us as a chick, so even with good care, layer hens do not fare well after their cull date. We lost all 3 of our hybrids this year over winter, after their moult.

 

[Adil_Ali]

Hello to all of you,

I am posting for the first time, and I apologize if I make some mistakes as English is not my language. I have tried searching on the forum but have not found information.

My two years old hen is very sick, probably dying. She is pooping green water every ten minutes, very lethargic and looking very ill. She has been sick for a week now getting worse. We put her in quarantine in a dog cage for 4 days now. She was rescued from a hen battery when she was only three months and she has had reproductive issues ever since she has started laying, so I think it may be ovarian cancer. My other five hens show no signs of illness, they are beginning to molt. I live in a small isolated village and we don't have a vet that specializes in chicken less than 2 hours drive away, so it is not possible. So we have been giving her a dewormer just in case but without much hope. We will wait the 7 days to see if it helps her but we are thinking of putting her down by that time if she does not get better because it is so sad to see her suffer so much.
My question is about feeding her and keeping her locked up. The only thing she will eat now, is a little egg and also cucumber which she is gobbling up. Should we just give her as much as she likes or restrict to try make her eat something else? I gave her two eggs yesterday and a whole cucumber and she ate all of it throughout the day, would this hurt her or is it best just to give her what she will eat?
Second question is that she is very depressed in her cage , she is a free ranging chicken not used to being locked up.I have been taking her outside one or two hour each day though it's only 15 degrees. She seems much more awake when she is outside even though she is not able to move much. Do you think it is ok or should we just let her doze inside the cage ?

I thank you very much for your help and wish all of you a pleasant day.

Give her live mealworms and soaked bread, if she doesn't eat them open her mouth forcefully and put in her throat, make sure its in smaller pieces, give her vitamins and minerals

 

[Lizzy733]

I just did a detailed post on tube-feeding IF it comes to that, but if she's eating/drinking, I would leave her to it for now:

Try to avoid tube-feeding, but if the need arises, get a big 60ml syringe... (A chicken crop holds around 100ml). You'll want to make a slurry of her feed in a blender and fill that syringe. You can add any extra vitamins etc to the mix.

If you are medicating, I would recommend doing this before tube feeding or pre- loading it onto the tip of the tube.

For the tube, silicone tubing wide enough to fit snugly over the end of the syringe. Potable water ones are best and come in a variety of widths, so getting a snug fit shouldn't be hard.

Cut about 2-3" long and melt the edges on one end till they are smooth, so as not to cut the throat on the way down.

Pull up your slurry, add the tube, squeeze out till there is no air in the tube, only food/medicine at the end of you choose, and cover the tube in olive oil so it's slick.

It's best if you have someone to hold them, but you can do it yourself with them tucked between your legs. - they will likely try to back up or flap to break your hold. Best to make sure they can't back up and to have their wings pinned by holding them down from the shoulders. If you are wrapping them in a towel, fold it under their wings before wrapping around their body and they are less likely to flap free. A 'holder' should keep their bodies horizontal.

Pull their head up to straighten out the throat. You should be holding behind the head near the ears - there are natural depressions in the skull there and us a good place to get head control on any bird no matter how big and vicious.

Open the mouth and have a look. The hole at the base of the tongue is for breathing (you can see them breathing through it) so make sure you get past that. Best way to do this is to go in at an angle and also aim for the side of their mouth.

Once the tube starts to go down, you should be able to feel it through their neck. Try not to force the tube too far down as it could scratch or damage the crop. You want to be at least half way down their neck though, then you can start plunging the syringe. The recommendation is to 'pulse', so 10ml or so at a time till it's empty. Bend the tube in half (unless it's too thick) before removing or remove slowly as this makes them less likely to regurgitate.

** Always check that the crop is empty before feeding
** Stop immediately if the food starts coming up the throat.

If you just need to get water down, try to get a smaller syringe and a tube from the vet. I got ahold of a kitten/puppy feeding tube that's mean to go all the way down to the stomach and cut it to size. It works great for just giving water/electrolytes. I can even get thinned polyaid down with it and it's much less intrusive than the silicone one. I use it with a little 12ml plunger.

Oh, and if the tube does 'not' fit snugly or your slurry is super thick, hold it in place while you plunge so it does not 'explode'.

As I help out with Birdcare Aotearoa in NZ, I've had plenty of experience with tube feeding, particularly with Kereru, which are pretty much bantam-size. They tend to go off their food and we end up tube-feeding prolly 3/4 of what comes in... And since they like to get drunk on fermented berries and smash into windows, we always have a few in.

 

[ManueB]

we decided to put her down today. She was a pet, so it is a tough call, but she was in pain and losing condition, so we did not want her to suffer.

I'm sorry for your loss, and it must have been heartbreaking to loose all three. I agree with what you say about hybrid layers. If we get some other hens we will definitely look into some older races, I knew nothing about hens when we got them, but now I feel so much harm comes from having bred layers that can produce eggs everyday.

There is only one vet in our area and people will only go to see her when they are desperate ! She would send the poo to the bigger vet lab that is 2 hours away so maybe we should just get an appointment there if our little hen makes it through the weekend.

We will not syringe feed her. It's difficult enough to give her the medication twice a day, she hates it so much

Here is a photo of her poo.

 

[Lizzy733]

If you have a microscope and slides lying around, you could do the float test yourself.

To do a fecal float, you can use saline eye drops for the float solution mixed with the tiniest amount of poo on a slide, spread super thin and swished down with the slide cover. And when I say tiny, I mean around the size of a grain of salt or coarse sand. You do want it to be fresh from the chicken's bum.

The eggs/cocci can usually be seen between 40-60x magnification, so you don't need a really powerful scope. They have that 'classic cell' look to them with an obvious outer membrane and nucleus - generally round, oval or oblong. If you find anything, you can reference online or ask here to confirm what it may be. I know there are a few that do their own float tests on here.

 

[ManueB]

A quick update : it seems like our little hen made it through! I don't know if it was the dewormer, or just resting and eating only food she wanted. We put her back with the other hens yesterday as she was just sitting staring at them and trying to get in their pen all the time. She is still a little slow and not eating the layer feed, so I'm feeding her egg and semolina. We'll see how she does, I never thought she would pull through and she is still a little weak so I don't want to get too excited.