Low slung ladee

[Lellyjelly]

Already posted this in New Members section - senior moment, but I am a new member so it seemed to make sense! Any ideas please? The Ladee in question also has a very mucky bum.

My kids bought me 6 ex caged hens for my sixtieth birthday, 2 years ago. We've had a few losses, mainly when the Ladees have just looked ill, then laid down and died, and I have had some replacement ladees, this time ex "free range" (huh - they were in a far worse state than the caged ones when they arrived, with only a couple of dozen feathers between them). Anyway, they have mostly survived and look really good these days. Now, Jennifer-hen, one of my originals, so I guess a few years old now, has been looking "wrong" the last few days, she's very low slung and walking a bit like a duck. She's eating and drinking fine and looks quite healthy in appearance, although she is spending some time just standing still and apparently asleep. I gave her some Poultry nutri drops (Nettex) a couple of days ago, but she hasn't responded to them. Any ideas? Is she just old? I don't know how long hens live, or how old they are when they leave commercial production places.

 

[Judy]

They can live around 10 to maybe 15 years, more or less, when all goes well. If she was laying, she might be eggbound. If she is, you should be able to feel an egg shape from the outside. I'm afraid the "low slung" and gait sound more like she may be an internal layer or have a reproductive cancer, though. If it feels like her "belly" is swollen (if they let you handle them) that is probably fluid accumulation, which can happen with internal laying and some other conditions, like heart failure.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/79443/tell-me-about-your-internal-layers/80_20#post_6235380

 

[Lellyjelly]

Thankyou Flockwatcher - I think you were probably right about something internal going on. Sadly Jennifer-hen died overnight. I had come back quite late from being out all day and all the others had gone up the stairs to roost, but Jennifer-hen was sitting at the bottom, so I brought her in to the kitchen. She seemed quite perky still and drank a good amount of water and ate some tinned cat food, always a favourite. She was lively and interested in all the dogs and cats who came to say hello. So i put her in a cat crate with a nice warm fleece under her and and covered it when I went to bed. When my husband came down this morning she was only barely alive and an hour or so later she had died. I had phoned the vet's on Friday and waited all day for the chicken one to phone me back, but she hadn't been appearing to deteriorate and she seemd much the same all day Saturday, so I had thought I would just take her in to see him this morning.

RIP Jennifer-hen