Issues with advanced age chickens

[azygous]

Who would have thought that the possibility of dementia might arise in my flock? And how about just discovering another old girl may be going broody?

My three-fourths blind twelve-year old Light Brahma Lady Di is displaying signs of dementia, or whatever you would call it when an old fat hen makes constant noises of grumpy discontent. Mostly she lies about on her Cleopatra cushions with her other ancient friends. In between, she's sending out fog horn signals and stumbles around searching for, I don't know what.

She is mostly blind now, but she can locate the food bowl, most of the time, but actually hitting the target can be a prolonged exercise. I make food available where she can find it, and also water, since it's gotten hard for her to target the vertical water nipples. But this morning, instead of going directly to the big bowl of fermented feed in the coop where the old biddies are fed, she stumbled off to a corner as if she wasn't sure of where she was heading. She eventually came back to the water bowl. Her health is good in every other respect other than for the tumor on her head she's had had half her life.

The other hen, my ten-year old GLW Su-su has been laying regularly for the past three or four weeks, even some acceptable egg shells among them. Yesterday, she laid a shell-less egg, and last night she spent the night in the nest and there was another shell-less egg under her this morning. None of this is remarkable. What has me in a state of wonder is that Su-su is now displaying all the signs of being broody. Who can mistake that broody clucking?

The reason I'm posting this, and I know I would be in rare company here, but have any of you had old hens with these issues? Or heard of these things going on with old chickens? I mean, going broody at age ten? Heck, I feel as caught off guard by this as I would if I'd just found out I was pregnant, a damn rare event for a 78 year old woman.

Su-su and Lady Di are the ones in the rear and far right.

 

[azygous]

Good news! Lady Di has recovered from her torticolis, and she's back out in the run. She's eating on her own, and I am hoping drinking, as well.

I don't tube feed any longer than is needed as I believe the effortless filling of the crop with food and water removes the natural hunger and thirst drives. I'm hoping Di rediscovers her water and drinks or she'll start to decline again.

But for now, the old girl doesn't appear to be going anywhere.

 

[azygous]

Lady Di is dead. I euthanized her to spare her more than the one bad day she's had in her 13 1/2 years. Yesterday was bad for her. She didn't open her eyes at all, and slept most of the day under the heat lamp. Didn't eat at all. She may have been in pain, and it was time to end it.

 

[azygous]

Lady Di and her pal Morgan the Black Cochin have a roosting perch a foot off the coop floor, and I need to left both old gals onto it each night. Lady Di overshoots it if she tries and ends up wedged between the perch and the wall on the floor, and Morgan won't even try because she is the laziest chicken in the universe.

 

[centrarchid]

Inner ear issues and sometimes what appears to be arthritis set in. With game hens, I back off on the layer / production feeds in favor of lower calorie mix that has lots of greens. A lower roost is provided as needed.

 

[azygous]

Su-su is still acting broody, but I've decided it is a "partial" broodiness like the time a number of years ago when she did the same thing to care for chicks I had in the run at that time. Those were about the age of these, five or six weeks old, and she cared for them until they were four months old. She's been showing the same signs of "caring" for the present chicks, even though they really require no care at this point.

I should call her Granny Su.

Lilith, by the way, the eleven-year old SLW hen in the rear left, has been laying shell-less eggs. There was one on the poop board under her this morning. This got her into trouble last year when an egg collapsed inside her. She survived a nasty infection and prolapse that time. That she's still alive and in good health is miraculous.

 

[azygous]

What's your secret to success with long lived chickens?

My chickens get a lot of love. They also have been getting fermented feed for around ten years. My hens lay regularly well past the expiration date on their reproductive systems. My Welsummers are seven years old and laying as regularly as when they were young.

I even have an avian leukemia in my flock, so it's even more remarkable.

 

[azygous]

Lady Di, my going-on-fourteen Light Brahma has been struggling with a tumor on her head that appears to be causing extended bouts of wry neck, torticolis. She can't eat and drink on her own when she's like this. She goes to eat and her head involuntarily flips upside down.

So, she has been getting tube fed for the last few days, along with vitamin E and tumeric to fight wry neck. Weakness from hunger and dehydration probably have exacerbated the torticolis and prolonged it.

I have been tube feeding egg and rice cereal with Nutri-drench with sporadic tubing of water. She's been indoors at around 60F for the past couple days since it's been zero degrees. Today, she's trying out being back in the run. At one point in her recent struggle, she discovered that by propping her head against a low perch, she can keep her head straight, something that impressed me. She did it for a good stretch of time, so I think she was doing it on purpose to help her deal with the problem.

Underlying this struggle is the question of when to euthanize. When I see her standing in a hospital crate with her head and neck hanging down and her head upside down on the floor of the crate, it just tears at my heart, and I struggle between ending her struggle and not wanting to take her chance of a few more months of a very long life if there's a chance she can get through this current bout of wry neck.

 

[azygous]

Yesterday, Lilith the eleven year-old SLW, turned up with another prolapse and dripping white mucous from her vent. She's on calcium and penicillin for a probable collapsed stuck egg. I've been treating the prolapse with witch hazel and cortisone cream. She spent the night in a crate in the garage since her vent had been injured before I discovered her plight.

Now, 24 hours later, still no egg remains and the prolapse is improving. I decided to move her in her crate back to the run. She immediately set up a chatter to let everyone know she was back and still second in command. It was hard to miss the difference in her mood, from mute to chatty when she was reunited with her flock. Goes to show how much better a chicken feels when permitted to remain with the flock while recuperating from illness.

Having aging chickens in a flock is definitely risky. It's little wonder that a lot of flock managers cull chickens when they approach "middle age".

 

[azygous]

Just as I was prepared to start a thread in the Emergencies forum, Lilith's prolapse finally resolved. It took eighteen days this time, and I was fearing something even worse since she's had it so long. Overnight, for the first time in over three weeks, Lil produced a big puddle of cecal poop. All this time it's been plain poop and her urates have been liquid and profuse. It remains to be seen if she will start to produce normal urates now.

It's been a real juggling act keeping her with the others yet protected. Twice, someone managed to peck her prolapse and that set us back each time. I will tell you in no uncertain terms, chickens feel pain and they holler whern you hurt them. Twice daily cleanings and treatments with cortisone, antibiotic ointment and Vetericyn created opportunities to hurt her.

Lil was on penicillin for eight days, and then I switched to amoxicillin and doubled the dose since she was slipping away from a possible infection from the egg remains. She got well, and steadily stronger. Today, it appears she's beat yet another serious issue that should have killed her. Age eleven and still rolling along. Whew!