Sincerelizard
Hatching
- Apr 21, 2020
- 1
- 0
- 6
So let me introduce the hens and our story a little. This may be a long post, so please share all and any ideas
We live in the UK and took ownership of 7 beautiful girls from our near neighbours. They’ve had three girls for just under 6 years and added four more girls 3 years ago. So we have three lots of 6 year olds and four lots of 3 year olds.
Unfortunately, the older girls have not received the most beneficial care for them up until we took them igiving them the required vitamins and feed that they needed.
One of our eldest hens, Penny, hasn’t walked on the left foot for over 2 years now. When I look back on videos or pictures of the girls, over time she would stop putting less and less pressure on it and up until this week she just sat down and stopped walking all together. We examined it many times, never noticed anything wrong with it. We even tried “physiotherapy” In the bath and she seemed to be more willing to put pressure on it (looked like it was possibly relieving pain?). Could this be some form of deformation due to the hens mainly living off bird seed and scraps in their first early years? We have totally changed their diet around, including a variety of top feed such as Fancy Feed Layers Pellets, vitamin water additives, apple cider vinegar etc.
I had started a flea clean of the coop and using flea and mite powder on the girls (Johnson’s Poultry Mite and Lice powder) after I lifted up Penny’s feathers and there was a terrible infestation of fleas, which I imagine all girls are dealing with. This seemed like it helped them a lot, they’re not itching as bad as they did.
Another thing I noticed was a few of the girls looked like they had been gasping for air, and I can’t distinguish if it’s because of how hot it is or if it is gape worm. They are due to be wormed now anyway, however the usual delivery we have has been delayed.
Last week I found her in the garden panting extremely heavily so I took her in straight away (It was very hot here, and the lockdown has allowed us to monitor the girls a lot more - we noticed since she stopped walking, we also have not seen her eat or drink by herself. We’re isolating her in a cardboard box with towels inside the house.
First day we brought her in, she did not show many signs of life. She lay in the box very quietly, would not budge even for her favourite snacks. She did a very little white poo and that was it. We got a litre jug of water, put 10ml of apple cider vinegar in and one table spoon of a vitamin mix (A, D3, E, K, B1, B2, B6, B12, C) which we are pouring into her beak regularly. We are feeding her porridge crushed with their feed and cat food. We started off with rice crushed with their feed.
One particular thing I noticed was that whenever we gave her something to drink she would dig her head and beak down and shake a little, almost as if she was in pain from swallowing the water? This was not the case with the food at all, she had all her favourite snacks and once we put it inside her peak she would smack her beak and enjoy the food. However, she would not and nearly a week later still isn’t eating or drinking on her own. Her eyes are wide open and completely fine, and she’s very aware of her surroundings.
I give her warm baths every day, and she does a poo in the bath almost every time. She also does poos (relatively solid considering she’s poorly and all she’s eating is what we’re hand feeding her). In the bath I massage her crop and abdomen and I don’t feel anything unusual, however her tummy area feels like it’s pulsating? It feels rather squishy, but not full.
It’s been about 5 days of her in isolation now, she’s looking a lot more lively. Whenever I try to hold her beak to open it up she puts up a massive fight, which she did not do before and she’s actually lifting her head up to look around. She still sleeps a lot, almost all of the time. When she wakes up she desperately tries to move, using her beak to pull herself and her wings to prop herself up. She also wiggles her tail from side to side and up and down too, like she’s frustrated or trying very hard to move. We roll up a towel and place it around her to stabilise her, she seems to enjoy sitting up a lot more. However I noticed that her head seems to be tilting to the left side a lot. It breaks my heart seeing her struggle like this, and I’m really hoping that if I add extra calcium to her water it’ll give her little bones extra strength, and when they all start their rounds of worming powder.
We’re desperately stuck on what to do, and if the worming and extra calcium does not work we are considering putting her out of her misery, please if anyone can offer any thoughts or advice that would be excellent. We love her, she’s our favourite (hate to admit it!)
(pictures are of some of the girls taken a few days ago and the one of Penny the ginger girly was taken today)
We live in the UK and took ownership of 7 beautiful girls from our near neighbours. They’ve had three girls for just under 6 years and added four more girls 3 years ago. So we have three lots of 6 year olds and four lots of 3 year olds.
Unfortunately, the older girls have not received the most beneficial care for them up until we took them igiving them the required vitamins and feed that they needed.
One of our eldest hens, Penny, hasn’t walked on the left foot for over 2 years now. When I look back on videos or pictures of the girls, over time she would stop putting less and less pressure on it and up until this week she just sat down and stopped walking all together. We examined it many times, never noticed anything wrong with it. We even tried “physiotherapy” In the bath and she seemed to be more willing to put pressure on it (looked like it was possibly relieving pain?). Could this be some form of deformation due to the hens mainly living off bird seed and scraps in their first early years? We have totally changed their diet around, including a variety of top feed such as Fancy Feed Layers Pellets, vitamin water additives, apple cider vinegar etc.
I had started a flea clean of the coop and using flea and mite powder on the girls (Johnson’s Poultry Mite and Lice powder) after I lifted up Penny’s feathers and there was a terrible infestation of fleas, which I imagine all girls are dealing with. This seemed like it helped them a lot, they’re not itching as bad as they did.
Another thing I noticed was a few of the girls looked like they had been gasping for air, and I can’t distinguish if it’s because of how hot it is or if it is gape worm. They are due to be wormed now anyway, however the usual delivery we have has been delayed.
Last week I found her in the garden panting extremely heavily so I took her in straight away (It was very hot here, and the lockdown has allowed us to monitor the girls a lot more - we noticed since she stopped walking, we also have not seen her eat or drink by herself. We’re isolating her in a cardboard box with towels inside the house.
First day we brought her in, she did not show many signs of life. She lay in the box very quietly, would not budge even for her favourite snacks. She did a very little white poo and that was it. We got a litre jug of water, put 10ml of apple cider vinegar in and one table spoon of a vitamin mix (A, D3, E, K, B1, B2, B6, B12, C) which we are pouring into her beak regularly. We are feeding her porridge crushed with their feed and cat food. We started off with rice crushed with their feed.
One particular thing I noticed was that whenever we gave her something to drink she would dig her head and beak down and shake a little, almost as if she was in pain from swallowing the water? This was not the case with the food at all, she had all her favourite snacks and once we put it inside her peak she would smack her beak and enjoy the food. However, she would not and nearly a week later still isn’t eating or drinking on her own. Her eyes are wide open and completely fine, and she’s very aware of her surroundings.
I give her warm baths every day, and she does a poo in the bath almost every time. She also does poos (relatively solid considering she’s poorly and all she’s eating is what we’re hand feeding her). In the bath I massage her crop and abdomen and I don’t feel anything unusual, however her tummy area feels like it’s pulsating? It feels rather squishy, but not full.
It’s been about 5 days of her in isolation now, she’s looking a lot more lively. Whenever I try to hold her beak to open it up she puts up a massive fight, which she did not do before and she’s actually lifting her head up to look around. She still sleeps a lot, almost all of the time. When she wakes up she desperately tries to move, using her beak to pull herself and her wings to prop herself up. She also wiggles her tail from side to side and up and down too, like she’s frustrated or trying very hard to move. We roll up a towel and place it around her to stabilise her, she seems to enjoy sitting up a lot more. However I noticed that her head seems to be tilting to the left side a lot. It breaks my heart seeing her struggle like this, and I’m really hoping that if I add extra calcium to her water it’ll give her little bones extra strength, and when they all start their rounds of worming powder.
We’re desperately stuck on what to do, and if the worming and extra calcium does not work we are considering putting her out of her misery, please if anyone can offer any thoughts or advice that would be excellent. We love her, she’s our favourite (hate to admit it!)
(pictures are of some of the girls taken a few days ago and the one of Penny the ginger girly was taken today)
