Infirmary is getting full and I need some help! picture heavy

[BlueMoon]

Thanks Cindy - gave AN lots of treats - cat food, steak, hamburger, eggs, if there's protein, she eats it. I'll take more photos - she really does look like a porcupine.

It's a horribly cold night (3f) and I've bunched them up to keep warmer. Even with a heat lamp and blankets in their garage (got booted out of the mudroom), it's just too cold.

The idea about the sanitary pad was brilliant!

Sad news though on the Orloff. I really must stop trying to do too much at once. I was letting her(him?) soak in the utility sink as s/he was covered in poo, ruptured air sac wasn't reducing and poor critter could no longer stand without support. I left the room, to grab the Amerucana, and the Orloff drowned!
I can't believe how stupid I was. Regardless if s/he made it through the night, which didn't seem likely, this was so uncharacteristically careless of me. I feel awful. Poor little thing.

 

[countryentertainment]

I expect going like that was easier than suffering another night, they really don't seem to feel pain like we do, unless it's their legs or feet. You did try to help, sometimes things don't happen the way we think they should. It is really hard taking care of anything that can't tell what's wrong.

Good luck with the rest of your chickens!
Cindy

 

[ole-crone]

I have a chicken who looked as bad as your featherless girl. I also wondered if it were mites behind it all since she looked that way since she wandered into our yard a couple of years ago. She always looked like something was eating her feathers but no sign of mites or lice. I always figured she was a geriatric hen who had escaped from an egg factory.

Last fall, she was looking worse than ever - not only naked as usual but molting on top of that. She also seemed to be self-mutilating. I figured it was near the end so I removed her from the chicken run/coop - away from ALL roosters and everyone else and let her have the run of the backyard. I told her that she could live in complete luxury til the end of time, never to be savagely raped again by our randy EE roo. Slowly, she started growing new feathers and for the first time they didn't look ratty.

One day, while feeding the other hens, as I opened the chicken run door, she made a bee line to join her old friends. The few months apart from the main group of chickens must have been just what she needed for help. Today she is fluffy and fully feathered - I'm shocked at how pretty the ol' girl is. I never thought she had it in her.

So, for your one chicken, keep in thought that it might not only be roosters doing the damage. The other hens might be pecking at the new feathers trying to come in and the hen herself might be doing some of the damage.