MY CHICKEN IS REALLY WEAK AND UNWELL, CAN ANYBODY HELP ME?!?

[melody0034]

Dear whom it may concern,
I live in Australia and my chicken's name is Jojo, it is a hen. I got it as a young chicken (in between three quarters hen and chick) in February.On Thursday the 3rd of may it started being more quiet and still. Then it stopped making gawk and cheep cheep sounds. I set it out in the garden to have a play but it just looked at me and stared, it was kinda squatting with the head close to the body. i gave it some grass and that's all it ate.Then i put it back in with a towel on top, i thought it was just tired but the next morning it couldn't stand up, it just squatted. it wouldn't even eat grass, her favourite treat. i left her alone to have some rest. Saturday morning it was still squatting and fell down twice. we went to the pet shop to buy a chicken lamp but there weren't any, we also looked for chicken blankets but there weren't any either. I got home and the chicken had fell down again. i put the chicken upright and placed a blanket on it. it looked really tired and kept closing it's eyes. this morning when i got to the cage there was a terrible surprise. the chicken was laying down wings spread out. i watched it for a little bit and the chicken kept on pushing against the cage floor. It kept on turning around and around. eventually i had to stop it or it would be too tired. I layed it down on the garage floor with a blanket covering it and a small container for a pillow. then i moved the cage to my laundry and then moved the chicken into the cage. it was warmer there but i put an oil heater half a metre away from the cage. Jojo just lay there. during the day it turned around in circles near four times, definitely a lot less than this morning. right now it is just sleeping, twitching every three seconds. it did that yesterday as well when it was sleeping while squatting. i hope to get some help before Jojo goes, and i hope she doesn't suffer too much.

Melody Lam

 

[dawg53]

I would suspect one of 3 things or a combination; eggbound, lice/mites, or worms.

 

[melody0034]

In the past four days jojo has not eaten anything but today she pooed a lot and my laundry smells. Do you think it might be constipation?

 

[klmclain1]

Inspect her VERY closely and thoroughly for lice or mites.
Have you ever wormed her? If so, when was the last time and with what?
When did she lay her last egg? Have you felt her belly around her vent? Can you feel an egg there???

 

[melody0034]

yes, i felt something hard but i didn't know what it was. sadly my chicken died on wednesday...

on thursday i cleaned out the cage. now I keep on thinking of all the things i could've done to help her. i wish i had the ability to help her, but how do you help an eggbound chicken?

 

[Erica]

Hi Melody0034,

I'm so sorry about your loss. I just wanted to say there are some things a chicken can catch when it's really young (e.g. just hatching ) that can cause it to lose its balance and get very sick later on. It's possible that this happened and nothing could have helped. If you feel up to finding out more information, you could look for the word 'marek's' online and see if that sounds like what your bird had. It may not be the problem but it's something to think about just in case.

I don't really think it was worms or egg bound, as you said the chicken was only 3/4 grown. Unless she was laying it's not a reproductive (egg related) issue.

Young chickens need very good food (e.g. lots of meat or other protein), so if you have chickens again, one of the things you can do to help stop any problems is make sure the food is just right for their age. When very little they also need extra warmth, e.g. a heat lamp. I'm sure you know these things, I'm just saying it in case.

Once again, so sorry you lost her. I hope you feel better and find yourself another hen to take care of.

best of luck,
Erica

 

[melody0034]

Hi Erica, thanks for your support, although I'm pretty sure my chicken didn't have mareks. This is because when my chicken was ill, it could still move a lot (always clawing at air and shaking her head, opening and closing her eyes, flapping around to roll over,etc.)for a sick chicken, and it didn't have the most obvious mareks symptoms. About her age, she was twice the height of my hand when she croons up for food.She was a white star hybrid but i don't know if she's tall enough to be considered an adult. There's another thing i haven't thought of, recently i changed her feeder from a small plastic container to a large tube feeder. maybe she was too full, my chicken loves eating.

 

[branston]

I lost three of my chickens to worms. Weak, not eating, wheezing/rasping. Can't tell you how important it is to get fecal tests run and to have a worming programme. I'm learning by my BIG mistakes!