Older hen with purple comb acting lethargic

[Stiggy]

I do believe she is getting old, she looks like a shaver or hy line to me, and they have short life spans as they are bred only to lay eggs then die... sorry but if she keeps getting worse in colour then death will be there lurking, in saying that we had some cobb birds ( meat birds that grow to 6 kg plucked and gutted) who's comb and skin turned purple, and it kept getting worse, we ended up calling it heart attack purple. other than being slower than the others she acted like a normal chicken until one day her heart couldn't take it anymore ( about 3 months after she started changing colour) and she collapsed and died. we knew early on that she was to far gone, so we let her live out the rest of her life comfortably with her chicken friends. If it is early then don't give up hope just yet. what's her poop like? and skin colour?

 

[Sparkleyhead]

Thank you very much dawg53! I will see if they have that at the store too.

Yeah Stiggy I agree. I am afraid that if her coloring gets worse then death won't be far off. But I'm hoping that whatever she is going through she can pull through it. As far as I can tell her poop is normal (I didn't see any abnormal turds around) and her skin is still a normal light pink when I was looking for mites earlier today. It is just her face that has gotten darker.

 

[Sparkleyhead]

For the respiratory medicine, would it be bad to treat the other 3 chickens too by means of the central water? The reason I ask is because I really don't have anywhere else to isolate Chica. I have 4 pullets taking up the only other "chicken corral" and house I have.

 

[dawg53]

For the respiratory medicine, would it be bad to treat the other 3 chickens too by means of the central water? The reason I ask is because I really don't have anywhere else to isolate Chica. I have 4 pullets taking up the only other "chicken corral" and house I have.

The gallimycin would strictly be for Chica and not your other birds. If there isnt improvement after giving her the wormer (which you can give your other birds) the gallimycin would be for bluecomb disease. The gallimycin will not be effective if in fact it's old age. It's your call what you want to do. Good luck.

 

[Sparkleyhead]

Ok that is exactly what I needed to know. Thank you again for all your help. Hopefully everything goes well.

 

[Sparkleyhead]

Well I went to the feed store and asked for Safegaurd, but the woman gave me Strongid Paste instead. I guess they didn't have Safegaurd? Either way it's a wormer and I gave a pea sized dosage to everyone (except one hen because she is a pig and stole the bread from someone else). If they drop dead from it I guess I can cross Strongid off the wormer list too.

 

[dawg53]

Strongid paste is pyrantel pamoate, that'll work.

 

[Sparkleyhead]

I finally have an answer to the poop question. It is liquid. She has had water and food so that's good at least. But the diarrhea coupled with the purplish comb and wattles, the loss of weight and lethargy makes me not optimistic. Maybe the wormer will work some magic, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. I noticed her leg coloring was off too. Maybe it is a heart problem. It's weird because this is all so sudden. I was cleaning her vent and cutting away dirty poop crusted feathers when I noticed she had bad ingrown feather that turned into a zit the size of a pinky fingernail. I squished it, then cleaned it up with alcohol so hopefully that makes her feel a little more comfortable.

 

[Stiggy]

What colour is the poop?

 

[Sparkleyhead]

It looked clearish brown