I suspect my first case of sour crop….

[azygous]

Try to get a little food into her every hour today. By tonight, she should be eagerly eating on her own if this works to build up her strength. This is important because a run-down system can't fight the yeast.

 

[Noreaster Egger]

Her crop is ballooned out again despite not eating or drinking anything more. I’m not sure anything is even reaching her digestive system. She just excreted a small amount of urates…nothing solid and no sign of feces. She looks awful. Just sitting with her eyes shut.

 

[azygous]

Did you give her a calcium tablet yet? Tums will do if that's all you have .

 

[Noreaster Egger]

Just want to follow up here and thank you for your help.

We lost her yesterday morning. She died quickly and peacefully in the run with her flockmates after spending one cold night inside the house.

We had some babysteps of improvement on Monday and Tuesday. She was eating the egg, rice, and mealies and her crop finally wet down. We kept up with the M7 daily. Unfortunately she woke up Wednesday morning looking terrible. The weather went downhill too with wind and cooler temps. The yellowish poop came back and any energy she was gaining she lost and went the other way. She started getting the purple comb and wattles look Wed evening and I knew she was struggling for oxygenation. I made the decision to keep her inside for the first time instead of sleeping through a night in the 20s. My wife put her out at 10am, in the warmer sun, to let her be with her sisters. She sat with her the entire time and in 20 mins she stood up to poo a little, sat back down, gave a soft little gasp, and passed away relatively quietly. She’s back with her old flockmates buried in the back woods now.

She definitely had some kind of underlying condition…I assume with her reproductive system. She lost a lot of the yeasty scent so I’m assuming the M7 was working…especially with the crop finally emptying. But with the other issues internally her time was just up.

It’s a very tough loss. She was one of the originals and we had a strong emotional attachment with her and she did with us as well. The last 2 losses now have been very hard ones…to the point where you start questioning if you ever want to add to the flock again and just let the ones you have now live out their lives and just be done with it after that. Time will probably heal the wound, but this one is definitely going to leave a scar.

RIP Pige (real name Ethel, but we always called her Pige since she would always coo at us like a pigeon). Gone, but never forgotten.

 

[azygous]

I'm sad and sorry to hear she gave up her fight. When I first responded to your thread, I was well aware of her age and that she very likely had a serious underlying health issue, probably egg yolk peritonitis (EYP). It's very common. Is she one of the red sex-link breeds? Reproductive issues is almost always how they end up.

I completely understand how sad and discouraged you're feeling at this moment. It's a helpless feeling after you've done so much to try to make her well and she died instead. Almost all of us here have been through this, and it never gets easier.

Contrary to the way you feel at the moment about inserting a few new chickens into the flock, it's precisely how I deal with a loss in my flock such as this. Knowing that come March, I can start hounding Tractor Supply for new chicks keeps my head above water. I start dreaming up new names and researching what breed I want this next time around.

This is, after all, how the circle of life works.

 

[Noreaster Egger]

Thanks for the thoughtful post. Our original 10 girls have always had a different bond with us versus the other 2 flock additions. I assume it’s because all they had was us while flocks 2 and 3 eventually gravitated toward the big sissies with time. We had a vague idea of what to do when we got into this 6 years ago thanks to this forum. But there was still a huge learning curve and we and those 10 girls had to figure it all out together…trial and error.

Anyway, she was a NH Red and I believe our farm store at the time said they sourced through Mt Healthy. Not sure if that is considered a production breed…aren’t they just a result of selective breeding from RI Reds?

 

[azygous]

Yes, New Hampshires were actually very carefully selectively bred from RIRs. While they are fast growing, I doubt they have the issues recently bred production breeds have. But, with all laying hens, reproductive issues can be part of life as they age. And even the very young ones can sometimes die from a reproductive issue. I had a one year-old Blue Andalusian die suddenly from internal laying.