Mysterious illness slowly killing chickens

[maryelizabeth724]

We have a small backyard flock. Since we have dogs too, they don’t free range. They’re in a coop and decent sized run area. We’ve had them all since day old chicks, but several months ago we started losing chickens very slowly. The process goes like this, and we’ve tried so many things to figure out what the problem is.
Starts out very slowly. Chicken becomes somewhat lethargic, still eats and drinks and poops like normal. Some even continue to lay eggs for a week,
Then, the tail goes down, and the lethargy gets a little more extreme. Still eats ok, but also starts to be the low one of the pecking order and usually stops laying completely.
Only one chicken at a time has gotten sick, and it’s been a few months since any have died. We are down to four remaining birds, and one now is acting lethargic and has sort of a bump on her hind near where her kidneys are. She’s not laying anymore. They’re all about a year old and we started with 8. Now we have four and we don’t want to lose another!
We regularly clean out the coop and have deep bedding in the run. They’re fed all natural non gmo scratch and feed, fresh fruit and veggies and bread leftover from our kitchen. We put lyfe tablets in water, acv, give yogurt. DE in food every couple weeks.
None have been egg bound as I’ve checked. We’ve given epsom salt baths. Quarantined them when necessary. I feel like we’ve tried everything!
Does anybody have ANY suggestions or tips!? Not knowing what’s slowly killing our girls is killing us!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

What state are you in? Should you lose another, the best thing to do would be to get a necropsy at your state veterinary lab. That's the only way to know for sure what is killing them. Otherwise it would be a guess as to which of the 100 things it could be.
The timing of the deaths may point to trying to keep the chickens warm. What is the lowest temperature and amount of ventilation in the coop?

 

[maryelizabeth724]

I live in Virginia. The weather is very fair. It’s been anywhere from 40 to 70 in the last couple weeks.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I'm not worried about it being cold, I'm worried about you being worried the chickens will be cold and close off ventilation.

Here is one of your poultry labs. There may be others.

VDACS Harrisonburg Regional Animal Health Laboratory
261 Mt. Clinton Pike
Harrisonburg, Virginia
22802-2551 Phone: 540-209-9130

 

[Mtnboomer]

I live in Virginia. The weather is very fair. It’s been anywhere from 40 to 70 in the last couple weeks.

I also live in VA. Try calling Virginia Tech or more specifically the Vet school. Its a teaching hospital and may be cheaper. See if you can bring it in (if you're close) or mail it. The coronavirus has things pretty haywire here as you know so im not sure what their current policy is.