Older hen not well this morning - UPDATE WEEKS LATER! (Good outcome)

[stuckinthecity]

I hope your hen makes it. Mine sadly did not, but atleast I learned how to help another if it happens again.

 

[verlaj]

I don't have high hopes for her long term, but I'm giving it a try. Thanks.

 

[threehorses]

I would go ahead and continue to look for anything new, but particularly look for any evidence of a bound egg or an egg that was shell-less inside her. Continue to feel her abdomen for any sign of one, etc. I'm glad she's more perky. Hopefully this was it and she'll do better, but do let us know anything that comes up, please.

 

[verlaj]

Well, I'll be darned! I really had very little hope that my hen would get better. But I did most of what was suggested - and believe it or not, my hen seems to be feeling much better now and I believe she started laying again a couple of days ago! She's back to hopping back on my lap when I go out with treats and staring directly in my eyes, demanding her share!

What did I do?
Rinse vent - gentle flush with stream of water.
Try to get her to eat something with extra calcium (mostly to no avail until after she started feeling better). Actually decided getting her to eat anything was better than nothing, and offered her a large variety of delectable treats just to get calories in her. Made sure oyster shell was available where the hens hang out away from the boisterous young'uns.
Penicillin injections - daily for 1 week.

About 1 week ago (after following the recent de-worming thread), I decided to deworm all the adult hens, because several of them had poopy feathers and were looking a little pale to me. Treated each individually with Wazine-17 - 1/2 cc full strength/bird. I have not seen any worms passed.

Will now treat with ivermectin, I think. Ready to get some eggs I can eat again, but I guess I can wait a little longer.

Not really sure what her problem was, but glad she's feeling better.

Many thanks for all the advice and support!

 

[threehorses]

Such great news! I'm very glad to hear that your hard work and persistence paid off!

On the other girls, whenever you worm (or see anything around the vent) go ahead and give them yogurt - or another probiotic.

I'm very glad the program is working for you, and now you know a secret (or not-so-secret) method to laying success! Very well done!

Thank you so much for letting us know.

 

[chookchick]

Hooray for White Feather!
It is so great to hear back what has happened, especially when it is good news!

 

[verlaj]

Thanks for caring and again for your help!

whenever you worm (or see anything around the vent) go ahead and give them yogurt - or another probiotic.

Just a note about this: A few weeks ago I gradually changed all the birds over to Blue Seal feed. All the products - Chick Starter, Grower-Cal, and Layer - have probiotics incorporated in the feed. From the tag - same on all 3 feeds: "Brewers Dried Yeast, Yeast Culture, Dried Enterococcus Faecium Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus Acidophilus Fermentation Product, Dried Yeast Fermentation Solubles." The other feed tags I have on hand (Purina Start and Grow, and Seminole Chick Starter/Grower) do not include any ingredients like those I listed in the Blue Seal.​

 

[threehorses]

Quote:
Just a note about this: A few weeks ago I gradually changed all the birds over to Blue Seal feed. All the products - Chick Starter, Grower-Cal, and Layer - have probiotics incorporated in the feed. From the tag - same on all 3 feeds: "Brewers Dried Yeast, Yeast Culture, Dried Enterococcus Faecium Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus Acidophilus Fermentation Product, Dried Yeast Fermentation Solubles." The other feed tags I have on hand (Purina Start and Grow, and Seminole Chick Starter/Grower) do not include any ingredients like those I listed in the Blue Seal.

Oh well then you're set for that, on the yeast side anyway. Just make sure that there are also CFU's listed for the lactobacilli or they're not live cultures but end products. In one article they say they use two kinds of bacteria (not end products) but they don't say which feeds. So I'd make sure.

p.s. I love feeds that have this in it AND are a good food, like Blue Seal (which I wish we could get here). Down here, Bluebonnet feeds have that type of ingredient in it and really clean beautiful feed ingredients. Another company, MG, adds them - but I find their feed to be a bit like ground up cat litter, sadly.

 

[verlaj]

The tag offers no additional info on the probiotics, and the Blue Seal website is surprisingly uninformative.

The Blue Seal crumbles look a lot like kitty litter, too, but I did an experiment comparing the preference of the chicks between the Blue Seal chick starter and Purina Start and Grow. The Purina smelled much better to me, but the chicks finished the Blue Seal loaded feeder with 2/3 of the feed left in the Purina loaded feeder. Switched feeders in case it was the feeder, not the feed. Same result - Blue Seal went first.

I wondered about how the dried probiotics compare to the live cultures in plain yogurt. I don't know what the "...product" and "... solubles" means.

 

[threehorses]

Quote:
Dried products are still helpful, and the yeast in the product is living - so that's a plus. It's still a good design - in THIS case put into a good product. (Not so much MG).

I have a lot of show buddies that are big-timers that really like that feed, so that says something about it.