Listless 17 month old chicken

[mamasarah]

My 17 mo old Australorp hen has all of a sudden gone listless. She is not eating, and spent most of the day sitting. She has yellow - white sticky poo covering her tail feathers. She walks only very occasionally, and very slowly. We have introduced some leghorn and rhode island red "teenagers" (well, 3 month olds now) about a week ago (they have been free ranging together for 2 months, but only recently gone in the coop). The australorp didn't go into the coop last night, but stayed outside underneath it.

One of our 2 month old Dorkings got taken by a cat yesterday -- not sure if she was around that.

They are on sawdust shavings in the coop, free range over about an acre of forest and grass, and eat an organic layer feed usually. There is some wet "grower" food on the grass, because we've bee moving the young one's coops around. Her crop seems normal.

Any tips would be appreciated!

 

[PunkinPeep]

My first thought is that maybe an egg is stuck? Try feeling very gently around her lower abdomen and see if you feel an egg inside. She might need a warm bath to loosen things up.

 

[mamasarah]

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!! we gave her a warm bath just now, and sure enough a soft, squished egg came out. And we figured out why this happened, as well. The laying hens have been eating the "grower" food of the "teenagers," that doesn't have any/much? calcium in it. So we'll put lots of oyster shells and only layer food out for awhile.

She's still soaking wet and we need to go to work -- any tips on keeping her warm? we put her in a big pile of wood shavings in her own coop to recuperate.

THANKS again so much.

 

[PunkinPeep]

Yay! So glad to hear it! If it's sunny outside, you could just let her go outside and get dust bath. But if you're keeping her inside for a while, you could just put her in a draft free area with a lamp - or you could blow dry her (on a very low setting).