Lethargic, purple comb, underweight chicken

poemoths

Hatching
May 24, 2022
2
3
6
Hi all,

One of my girls is having a really hard time. I thought I would open the door to a dead chicken this morning :(

Not sure what breed she is but she's very underweight for her normal self.

She started with low energy and diarrhea and is now nearly immobile and doesn't seem to have an appetite or the energy to eat. She is very underweight. Her comb is purple and she has trouble breathing, sometimes breaths sounds a little thick. She is currently laying on the floor of the coop with her eyes closed and is taking noticeably deep and quick breaths.

Her symptoms have been severe for the past 2-3 days, but I haven't been in town to see is she's been losing weight for awhile

Quite a few of my birds (~5 out of 14 chickens) have fallen sick and died with nearly the exact same symptoms over the past 1.5 years, but only one is sick at a time and months can go by between illness. One bird had a slow asymmetrical paralysis and a convulsing, twisting neck reminiscent of Mareks but the others haven't had that symptom.

No signs or trauma or any recent changes in environment.

I've been replacing the water every day and they are being feed with Purina layer crumbles.

Diarrhea is very watery with slight green tint, no visible worms but it did seem almost grainy. Her rear feathers around the cloaca are much dirtier and smell more than normal.


I'm lost on treatment. So far just trying to keep her energy up and give her fresh air in case it's a respiratory or mold issue. In the past I've looked for them being egg bound, sour/impacted crops and the like.

There are no avian vets accessible to me and I would like to be able to stabilize her so that I don't lose her overnight if possible.

They have pine shavings that are clean and dry, but I haven't done a deep clean of the coop yet for spring.

Any help would be appreciated. It's been heartbreaking to slowly lose my girls when I'm sure it's a management issue.
 
Your clues to what's happening to this hen reside in past mortalities that had the same symptoms leading up to death. I suspect an avian virus is at fault, possibly lymphoid leucosis, because I have this in my flock and I recognize the symptoms.

Your hen is dying, and probably within hours of it. If your hen is mostly lying still with eyes closed, the end is near. But you can try giving her some warm sugar water and some soft boiled egg to see if she will take it. If she does and it revives her, then perhaps there is a chance an antibiotic could help. Continued decline will indicate an unresolvable issue.
 
Mareks disease can have a lot of different presentations. It sounds like one hen might had that. I would try to get some fluids and nutrition into your hen, but if she dies, I would contact your state vet to get a necropsy done, to do testing and find out if it is something like Mareks or LL that could affect your other chickens.
 
Hi all,

One of my girls is having a really hard time. I thought I would open the door to a dead chicken this morning :(

Not sure what breed she is but she's very underweight for her normal self.

She started with low energy and diarrhea and is now nearly immobile and doesn't seem to have an appetite or the energy to eat. She is very underweight. Her comb is purple and she has trouble breathing, sometimes breaths sounds a little thick. She is currently laying on the floor of the coop with her eyes closed and is taking noticeably deep and quick breaths.

Her symptoms have been severe for the past 2-3 days, but I haven't been in town to see is she's been losing weight for awhile

Quite a few of my birds (~5 out of 14 chickens) have fallen sick and died with nearly the exact same symptoms over the past 1.5 years, but only one is sick at a time and months can go by between illness. One bird had a slow asymmetrical paralysis and a convulsing, twisting neck reminiscent of Mareks but the others haven't had that symptom.

No signs or trauma or any recent changes in environment.

I've been replacing the water every day and they are being feed with Purina layer crumbles.

Diarrhea is very watery with slight green tint, no visible worms but it did seem almost grainy. Her rear feathers around the cloaca are much dirtier and smell more than normal.


I'm lost on treatment. So far just trying to keep her energy up and give her fresh air in case it's a respiratory or mold issue. In the past I've looked for them being egg bound, sour/impacted crops and the like.

There are no avian vets accessible to me and I would like to be able to stabilize her so that I don't lose her overnight if possible.

They have pine shavings that are clean and dry, but I haven't done a deep clean of the coop yet for spring.

Any help would be appreciated. It's been heartbreaking to slowly lose my girls when I'm sure it's a management issue.
Is she up to date on worming treatments? Worms dont usually cause purple comb, but all the other symptoms are possible.

Have you ever done a post mortem on the dead ones to examine the digestive tracts and organs?
 
She died a few hours later after making the post. We brought her to the Ag Department to get a necropsy and the vet called me with her preliminary findings last night.

This chicken died from a blockage in her oviduct, salpingitis. I can't remember if the vet said she either suspected or confirmed that the chickens had mycoplasma, which would have caused the chronic low-grade sick birds (and maybe the salpingitis?). To my knowledge, that would have been transmitted from the breeders that we got the chickens from. She'll be doing more testing for Avian Influenza, etc, but for now I think I just have to baby my chickens and keep them from getting secondary diseases since their immune systems are probably messed up from the mycoplasma?

Thanks everyone for your input and support. I appreciated all of it very much and will use it in the future care of the birds!
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom