Please help! 🙏 What does she have and what should we do

Quinn Kiriluk

Hatching
Dec 26, 2024
6
3
6
On Christmas Eve, we found that our favorite chicken, Ferdinand, an almost 5 year old Jersey giant hen wasn’t doing to well. We brought her into our garage. Most of the day she’ll stand balled up with ruffled feathers and closed eyes. We can get her to drink a bit of water if we guide her head to the bowl. We offered her scrambled eggs which she barely ate so she hasn’t eaten much. She also is always scratching and itching herself, mite/lice? We have her on Nutri-Drench with Strike 3 medicated pellets. We got her do drink the Nurti-Drench, but she isn’t eating or drinking much unless we hold her head by the water bowl. We ordered some Corid which comes in tomorrow morning. You guys think she’ll make it.
 
Welcome to BYC.
You're going to have closely inspect your hen for lice and mites, especially around the vent area where it's warm and moist.
Lice have 6 legs and are usually white or off white in color. They are more of an irritant to chickens causing itching and scratching. You can see lice eggs attached to feather shafts especially around the vent area.
Mites have 8 legs, suck blood, cause anemia, then death. Red mites can infect chickens with spirochetes as well. They cause itching as well.
Here's a link for you with pics:
https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/IG140
If in fact it's lice/mites, you'll need to closely inspect all your birds and inside coops, especially at night. Bring a flashlight and inspect the roosts for anything that's crawling.
Your birds will need to be treated with Permethrin dust or liquid concentrate, including inside coops.
Let us know what you see after you inspect your sick hen.
 
Unfortunately we’re out of town, but we’re having people check in on her. I’ll ask them to check tomorrow when they the give her Corid. We inspected yesterday and didn’t find anything. Is there anything we can give her to treat mites/lice even if we don’t see anything.
 

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