I need long time chicken keepers help.. pullet losing feathers, huge scabs, pus filled pores, not being picked on/no bugs?

[SmiYa0126]

I took these photos earlier tonight, she’s got towels for bedding and I put a stuffed teddy bear in the coop with her to snuggle with
View attachment 3606821
I’m really happy with how the dead skin/chunks are flaking off on their own now. The antiseptic soak/spraying an antiseptic on her as well after she dried really helped her out especially since I was removing really bad problem feathers and got some of the really bad pieces out that could come out
View attachment 3606814View attachment 3606815View attachment 3606816View attachment 3606817View attachment 3606818View attachment 3606819View attachment 3606820
I’m going to bath her again this weekend and try and remove some more pieces of dead skin/gunk build up. I’m not sure how her skin is going to be under the biggest section along her back, but if she’s got less feathers than a normal chicken after this then that’s okay as well she can wear a saddle to keep warm like my frizzles did which helped them keep warmer with their bare backs on the chillier days.

I’ll do more photos when I get her cleaned up again and let you all know how she’s doing

Poor sweet girl!

 

[ChickenTenderKesha]

I’m fairly confident that the issue here is follicle cysts. She’s developed some neurological issues, blindness, ataxia, and some slight toe curling.
She’s not paralyzed anywhere, has very strong appetite when able to get the food (had to change her out to a wet mash of chick starter so she was able to grab the food as the blindness was hard for her to deal with), and is talking with the other birds when they are around her coop and chatters to me constantly.

Her bad days are when she gets cold, the shivering takes her over and her balance goes all wonky. She’s actually had some slight toe curling going on but is now being able to have them sit normally and is able to grab stuff to perch on again after switching to the mash. She was able to stay on my foot and not wiggle-wobble and fall off like she had been doing there for a while!

I do feel the neuro issues, blindness, ataxia, and toe curling are from vitamin deficiencies due to the extreme feather growth and healing she’s trying to do over a lot of her body.
The slight drop in her wings is due to where the scabs are forming and where the feathers are not being able to get through the build up of dried/hardened pus I’ve had to remove from the follicles. That’s what all of the scabs are from it seems, pus build up preventing the feather from going through causing redness and inflammation to her skin. She’s had so many healthy feathers come in after the fact that it’s too fitting not to be that.

I’ll be bathing her again today and may try to call our vet/an avian vet as I’ve found one near me to talk about supplemental vitamins/nutrients for her to see if that helps some of her neuro issues. I’ve read that vitamin deficiencies that cause neurological problems can’t always be reversed after they develop so I’m hoping that supplementing some will help reduce the issues she’s facing currently. But I’m expecting to have a special needs chicken that I need to possibly find a friend or two for if she’s able to feather out nicely and not have this continuously happen to her follicles.

 

[LaFleche]

While I applaud your will and efforts to help her, please, do reassess the situation and consider her actual and future quality of life as well.

 

[ChickenTenderKesha]

While I applaud your will and efforts to help her, please, do reassess the situation and consider her actual and future quality of life as well.

Thank you for bringing that up!
I have been assessing her a lot lately for that reason, seeing how she does and what kind of life she can live if she can’t rebound from this.
I do want to try the vitamin’s because she has such a strong will to live, but if she does not continue to improve and gets caught in this grey area she will be culled and I’ll be trying to have a necropsy done to confirm if it is truly mareks or something else causing these signs in her

 

[ChickenTenderKesha]

I could be wrong about ataxia being what I think she’s doing ? Maybe torticolis is more what it is? She’s turning her head more than normal off to the side/towards her wing sometimes.
Although she’s still been able to preen and reach her preening gland herself with really good balance, unlike when she first started to lose her sight and had been missing the feeder a lot during the day

Edit to add: I read more into Ataxia and Torticollis and it doesn’t seem like either of those is what she’s doing now ugh why was it reading different on the medical website

 

[LaFleche]

Thank you for bringing that up!
I have been assessing her a lot lately for that reason, seeing how she does and what kind of life she can live if she can’t rebound from this.
I do want to try the vitamin’s because she has such a strong will to live, but if she does not continue to improve and gets caught in this grey area she will be culled and I’ll be trying to have a necropsy done to confirm if it is truly mareks or something else causing these signs in her

She is lucky to have you.

Many owners seem to lose sight of the future quality of life when falling down the rabbit hole of trying to save a beloved animal at all costs.

 

[ChickenTenderKesha]

She is lucky to have you.

Many owners seem to lose sight of the future quality of life when falling down the rabbit hole of trying to save a beloved animal at all costs.

I read one thread where someone had follicle cysts on their chicken and said they had to pluck every feather out of them and that makes me shudder because of all the pain that would cause the poor bird.

I’m very keen on animals and their welfare. I don’t want an animal to suffer and have had to make this decision before on a chick that I hatched out this year with bad legs and one ended up rotating 180° so the footpad was facing up. The future quality of life was at risk for that chick without proper use of its legs and had to be culled for its deformities unfortunately. The rest of the hatch mates that made it to the brooder had no such issues, one had neuro issues it seemed upon hatch and had drowned in the incubator’s water tray for humidity.
I’ve definitely thought already about having to cull Chelsey with her skin issues being so bad.
The one thing stopping me is the fact I have seen so much improvement from her when given the chance to heal properly. She’s more apt to eat food after I bather her and clear out some of the pus chunks that want to come out and I try not to remove any that cause her pain. If she’s showing that it’s hurting her by trying to move away or wiggle from where she’s sitting, I leave her be. The chlorhex baths help a lot with softening it up and having her on towels definitely helps keep everything clean so she’s got some parts coming off without me even doing anything for them shockingly!

She’s been eating while I’ve been typing to you as she’s currently residing in my bathtub due to the chill we got last night with the storm coming in

 

[ChickenTenderKesha]

Actually, now that I’m talking about her, me assessing her is why I haven’t been updating on this thread recently.
She went downhill and I had thought I’d have to head home from work one day to cull her about a week or two ago now ?
It dropped down really cold and she had been flipped on her back but my mom brought her inside to the back porch and she warmed up and was like herself again. This is before we were giving her mash and I had realized that eating the crumble hurts her as she’s got some thick scabbing on her crop as theres lots of skin there that’s wrinkly. She fills her crop with the mash now though constantly and is no longer having diarrhea like she had been when she wasn’t filling her crop or eating as much due to the pain.
She’s seemed to have come up since that time so I am just waiting for her to get bad again but it’s not seemed to happen yet like it had with the bad legs chick (they only get better right before they get worse).

 

[LaFleche]

Let her have some scrambled eggs with fine oat meal and finely grated carrots.
Natural vitamins and animal protein will be helpful for her and better metabolized than artificial ones.

 

[ChickenTenderKesha]

Let her have some scrambled eggs with fine oat meal and finely grated carrots.
Natural vitamins and animal protein will be helpful for her and better metabolized than artificial ones.

I mixed up an egg with her mash this morning so hopefully she’s gotten a lot of that in her today. I’ll get some fine oatmeal and finely grated carrots for her to eat as well. Thank you for your knowledge about these better nutrients for her