Hi all! I am brand new to BYC (which came highly recommended by a good friend of mine!) and we are newbies at raising chickens. We have 6 hens we got for Easter last year that are like pets to us. My 4 children and I LOVE them, the hubby puts up with my "chicken lady craziness" When my son got home from school this afternoon, he found our girl Daisy lying on her back in a garden spot. She was pretty lifeless and we feared the worst. We brought her inside and wrapped her in a towel to warm her (we are in UT, it was about 25 degrees today and LOTS of snow here). She had a little bit of blood under her left wing and blood on her left foot - I am pretty certain now that she probably scratched herself. A few hours before we found her, all the hens were making a LOT of noise, but I knew they had water and looking out the window I didn't see anything amiss - now I know that they were trying to tell me something was wrong! She's been inside since then and after a while began taking little sips of water - I added a little sugar to it, like a friend suggested. She's been eating a little. When I moved her from the small box we had her in to an indoor pen, I found an egg - without a shell - under her. She moves her head around fine, but does not move her legs or attempt to stand at all. When I laid her down she did not want her foot under her, acted like it was painful. My husband was looking her over a little when he got home and when he gently pulled on a foot, she did get riled up about that, you could tell something was painful to her. And she has not pooped at all in the time that she has been inside - going on 9 hours now. Any ideas or help would be appreciated! TIA
Apparantly she mightve been attacked by something resulting in her injuries, perhaps her flockmates going after her, a pecking order issue. Flush the visible injuries with 50/50 water/betadine mixture and apply neosporin ointment to the injuries, continue with the neosporin as necessary until healed. She may have internal injuries as well. All you can do is provide comfort support, feed her buttermilk mixed with scrambled egg. Buttermilk is a probiotic that will help build up her immune system and the scrambled egg is extra protein to help build up strength. The shelless egg may have been an anomaly due to her injuries, I dont believe she is eggbound or egg impacted. Keep her where she's at, maybe in time she'll heal. I'd give her at least a week to 10 days to look for signs of improvement. If there arnt any, it will become a quality of life issue and you may have to cull her. She'll poop once she gets the buttermilk/scrambled egg in her IF there arnt any internal injuries.
If she is in a small box, she may feel like it is a nest & will to try to hold in her poop until she gets into a more open space. Watch out--she might consider your lap to be a good toilet site if you pick her up after she's been holding her poop for in a few hours! If she can't stand without pain, she also may be afraid that if she poops she'll get it on herself, which chickens try to avoid. Maybe take her into a room with a tile or linoleum floor & hold her in your hands a few inches above the floor & see if she relieves herself. If that seems to be the answer, maybe you could repeat that every few hours to help her out.
