Good evening,
We bought our hens from a breeding farm, they were 19 weeks old and vaccinated.
A year and a half later (7 months ago), one of them got puffy, barely ate/drank and wasn't able to jump at night on the roosting bar with others so she went to sleep in the laying box after a few tries and failed.
We took her to the vet that did a general check up and said her heart is strong. She took a poo test and didn't find anything wrong. She did x-ray and said everything is in great shape, we could see 4 eggs in line of production (kind of cool to see that) and the vet said that after she gets better she will lay those eggs. She checked for egg bound but said it’s not the case. We received 2 kinds of vitamins to add to their water for a few weeks.
For another 3 weeks we tried to feed her and to make her drink water and she took the minimum possible. She got weaker and weaker every week. Every evening when she entered the coop we picked her up and put her on the roost bar so she could sleep with her friends.
One day we put her in our green house and tried to put different sizes of fresh warms but she was so weak that she couldn't even break them and eat them. That was very sad and we were sure that it would be a matter of days.
The day after the green house she woke up and went straight to eat. She didn't stop eating and drinking. She got super strong and behaved like every other chicken, jumping to roost with everybody and we thought all is good. The only thing is that her poop stayed kind of liquid.
In winter it gets pretty cold here. Minus 20 celsius is the average temperature and there are days 0f -40 or colder. Liquid poo freezes before it even hits the ground and it hangs on her feathers and continues to accumulate until she carries on her feathers kind of a big popsicle or actualy poopsicle. So every time it accumulates we bring her in, put her in a warm epsom salt bath in order to melt it and remove it.
Last week she lost appetite and had a problem walking on her feet which seemed bigger than the other feet so we dipped her feet in epsom salt and sprayed antibacterial spray because we thought its bumblefoot or something. It also gave us an opportunity to feed her separately from the other chickens which was successful. but after a few days it's clear that its not a problem with her feet.
Now she has a good appetite but she has a hard time walking or jumping and She sits down with her tail down.
If someone has experienced anything like that before, if someone has an idea of what it could be or what we can do to help her, we will appreciate it a lot if you can share. It has been 7 months since the x-ray that showed 4 eggs in the making.
Hennyp suggested it might be internal laying and attached an article (thank you). It doesn’t sound like the article’s symptoms but after checking the web we realized it might be a possibility.
We will try to get a meeting at the vet although it’s very difficult in our area. We will share once we have news.
We bought our hens from a breeding farm, they were 19 weeks old and vaccinated.
A year and a half later (7 months ago), one of them got puffy, barely ate/drank and wasn't able to jump at night on the roosting bar with others so she went to sleep in the laying box after a few tries and failed.
We took her to the vet that did a general check up and said her heart is strong. She took a poo test and didn't find anything wrong. She did x-ray and said everything is in great shape, we could see 4 eggs in line of production (kind of cool to see that) and the vet said that after she gets better she will lay those eggs. She checked for egg bound but said it’s not the case. We received 2 kinds of vitamins to add to their water for a few weeks.
For another 3 weeks we tried to feed her and to make her drink water and she took the minimum possible. She got weaker and weaker every week. Every evening when she entered the coop we picked her up and put her on the roost bar so she could sleep with her friends.
One day we put her in our green house and tried to put different sizes of fresh warms but she was so weak that she couldn't even break them and eat them. That was very sad and we were sure that it would be a matter of days.
The day after the green house she woke up and went straight to eat. She didn't stop eating and drinking. She got super strong and behaved like every other chicken, jumping to roost with everybody and we thought all is good. The only thing is that her poop stayed kind of liquid.
In winter it gets pretty cold here. Minus 20 celsius is the average temperature and there are days 0f -40 or colder. Liquid poo freezes before it even hits the ground and it hangs on her feathers and continues to accumulate until she carries on her feathers kind of a big popsicle or actualy poopsicle. So every time it accumulates we bring her in, put her in a warm epsom salt bath in order to melt it and remove it.
Last week she lost appetite and had a problem walking on her feet which seemed bigger than the other feet so we dipped her feet in epsom salt and sprayed antibacterial spray because we thought its bumblefoot or something. It also gave us an opportunity to feed her separately from the other chickens which was successful. but after a few days it's clear that its not a problem with her feet.
Now she has a good appetite but she has a hard time walking or jumping and She sits down with her tail down.
If someone has experienced anything like that before, if someone has an idea of what it could be or what we can do to help her, we will appreciate it a lot if you can share. It has been 7 months since the x-ray that showed 4 eggs in the making.
Hennyp suggested it might be internal laying and attached an article (thank you). It doesn’t sound like the article’s symptoms but after checking the web we realized it might be a possibility.
We will try to get a meeting at the vet although it’s very difficult in our area. We will share once we have news.
