Not so thrifty chicken

[krebolo125]

Hello,

I am new to the chicken raising hobby. I have a lot of knowledge of dogs and cats but I am pretty clueless when it comes to the chickens but I do love my new friends. We have 7 Dominque hens and 4 of them are about 4 months old now and one is just not quite right. Her name is Nugget and she has always been my kids favorite. But she has never been quite right to me. Since she was a chick she was always puffing herself up and that was how we could tell her apart form the others and she always had this funny look in her eyes but she walks normal and eats normally etc..... we free range during the day and lock them up in a large coop at night. Anyway, she is now the runt and is pretty skinny compared to the rest but we see her eating plenty? We have been taking her in the house at night lately because it is pretty cold out and she has been shivering. Since she is skinny I thought this was a good idea until she puts a little weight on. But I don't want to alienate her from the flock, is this a bad idea? Any ideas on how to pack some weight on her? She also has a droopy wing???

Any ideas or suggestions would be great, thank you!!

PS her stool is normal.

 

[OC closet chicken fan]

i am a newbie too anyways here are my 2 cents...

Has Nugget always been like that? maybe an internal defect that is slowly getting worse? have you thoroughly checked for mites/lice/worms?

when one of my pullet first moved outdoors area she was not well so...had a droopy wing and ruffled feathers... was not active and just slept all the time it went on for aobut a week with no improvement so i was thinking maybe cocci... got whatever was available at the feed store...gave her proper dosage of sulmet and i am not sure if it was the sulmet but she came out of it a week later and now healthy and happy.

to increase the weight i would just restrict her free range by putting her in the chicken run for a week or two and increase her protein a bit... also maybe some electrolyte in the water.

so i would just take care of whatever is keeping Nugget down..then work on the weight gain afterwards.

good luck

 

[Ksane]

She should be wormed with Safeguard or (better yet) Valbazen. NOT Wazine because it only kills 1 kind of worm. Given the fact they free range she's most certainly come in contact with worms from wild birds, etc. Just because you don't see worms in her stools doesn't mean she doesn't have them.

 

[krebolo125]

Ok I will de-worm her and the rest of them too. She has always been like this ..........ruffles feathers and a little off mentally so I think she is a little "special". Something is definatly wrong with her but no too serious, she eats just fine and I don't see her getting pick on so I am no sure what it is but I guess she gets along ok. I will de-worm though. Why the one droopy wing? It is larger than the the other wing too?

Thanks for your advice!!

 

[Ksane]

Not sure about the droopy wing unless it's just because she's weak. The other poster asked if you'd checked for lice and mites, that's an excellent point. Lice don'lt suck blood but mites DO and can make them weak, anemic and even kill them. It definitely causes stunting. Get your reading glasses on and check very closely all over on her skin for mites. They're about the size of a dot of salt and move fast. Lice hang out in their vent area and chew on their skin flakes and feathers. So check all around their vents. Sometimes in bad cases of lice they'll have bald butts.