So it started in the beginning of October. We had a hen that has had an on and off eye infection that just wouldn't go away. We took her to the vet who said it wasn't anything contagious, and gave us eye drops. She seemed like her balance was off, but we attributed it to her eye. We found her lying on the ground half of her body paralyzed and gasping for air. She died an hour later. 2 weeks ago I noticed another one of our EE, Zoey, was acting strange. She was slower than the others, and a bit clumsy. She would just come out of the coup and stand there. So we isolated her. She was eating and drinking initially, but then she could hardly get up. She stopped eating and drinking, she felt as though she had lost a lot of weight (this was before we isolated her) so I started syringe feeding her electrolytes and sulfa meds (our farmer thought coccidiosis). Within a day she couldn't stand anymore and the next day (last Sunday) she was gone. Now I have a RIR that is doing the same thing! She walks really slowly (while the others are running around) and she is off balance. Monday she came out of the coup and just laid on the cold ground, and she was shaking. So we brought her inside. She is eating heartily, and drinking. Her eyes look fine, they are bright and no redness. I looked at her poop, which is soft brown, with white... Looks normal. Her skin all looks ok. I can't see any parasites, but I'm not 100% sure what I am looking for. I know what lice and worms look like & I don't see any. Even in the crate this morning she was standing up when I went to her, but when she went for the food she looked like she got tripped up on her feet. They were all wormed about 2 weeks ago when zoey started to look sick with ivermectin. I've been giving the sulfa meds to all of them now since Sunday for 6 days.
The other thing I forgot to mention is the red did this thing yesterday where she squatted down like she was going to poop, but nothing came out. She did this twice, while I was standing there? I'm afraid we are going to lose our whole flock. We started out with 6, but we only have 3 healthy ones left.
FYI we feed them natures best organic feed pellets. We let them free range for a few hours 3-4 days a week in our fenced in, suburban back yard (1/4 acre). I clean there coup once a week. When the one in October died, I cleaned and scrubbed the coup, water & feed dishes. Water is from the hose, it's city water.
