one of our chickens looking sickly, with pale comb

[rainbowgardener]

Hi. We have six backyard chickens that we got as one month old babies in March. So far they have been doing fine. They are three Buff Orpingtons and three Ameraucanas. But recently (maybe a couple weeks or so) one of the Orpingtons has been looking sickly. Her comb is very pale, she is definitely thin compared to all the other ones, and she looks patchy, but not with bare skin. I imagine she is molting, we are finding lots of feathers around. But I expect they all have been dropping some feathers. I only just started paying close attention in the last few days and it does seem that she is getting worse.

We do not have supplemental lighting, so all our chickens have slowed down laying considerably. In the summer we were averaging five eggs a day from our six hens. Now we are getting one or two a day. One of the Ameraucanas lays blue/olive eggs. We haven't gotten one of those for over a month. The Orpingtons lay big, roundish brown eggs. The other Ameraucanas lay smaller, more pointed, light tan eggs. We have still been getting both types of those. I don't have a way to know if the sickly looking one is laying some of them or not.

They get commercial feed for laying hens on demand, as much as they want. They never see the bottom of their feeder. We mix some oyster shell and grit in with their food. In addition we scatter a little bit of meal worms and sunflower/raisin snack for them a couple times a day. They have about 48 square feet of coop and run, but we also let them out to free range our back yard (about 100' x 75') for about three hours a day. (We have dogs, so we alternate who gets to be out in the yard, dogs or chickens.)

I am in the Chattanooga TN area. It has been chilly with a few nights below freezing. The coop is also unheated.

Hope this is enough to go on. If there is more information I should provide, please let me know. TIA for any help you can provide.

 

[rainbowgardener]

P.S. I should have said, the sickly looking one seems to be doing fine behaviorally. She has good energy, is not lethargic, and seems to be eating fine as near as I can tell.

But it does seem like her nostrils are perhaps enlarged...

 

[azygous]

A very pale comb that looks like a piece of lunch meat is not a good sign. It could signify tumors on organs. Often a chicken with slow growing tumors will keep on acting normal and eating okay for months, then they die suddenly. There's nothing you can do about it except get a necropsy on the dead chicken to find out what avian virus produced the tumors.

That's the worst case. It could be she's no long producing hormones because of the short days and decreased light exposure. Or she may have worms. A fecal float test on random poop samples can tell you if they're positive for worms and what kind.

It's doubtful this hen is molting in the true fashion of molt since she's not old enough. But you should examine her for external parasites. Mites will accumulate around the feathers below the vent, and lice will inhabit the skin around the vent. An overload can make a hen sickly.

Do a thorough exam of her body for any injuries that may have become infected. Look for red skin. An infection can kill. Look at the bottoms of the feet for wounds and black scabs and examine the scales on the legs for signs of them lifting up to indicate leg mites.

This should give you a start. It's not easy to diagnose a sick hen, especially over the internet, but we can at least eliminate possibilities.