Please help! New chicken owner with a very sick chicken.. At least I think she is..

[abita17]

I am a brand new chicken owner and one of my chickens, Henrietta- who has just become old enough to lay seems very ill. A few days ago I went out early in the am and found Henrietta still in her coop. She was standing but her head was bobbing like she was nodding off to sleep. She had diarrhea under neath her and was pretty listless and unresponsive. An hour later she finally got out- seemed a bit better- laid an egg- so I left for work. I came home to find her standing in the exact spot. Her eyes are clear- I haven't seen anything that would seem like a respiratory issue- then yesterday morning she seemed a bit better- she got up and out- though she still kept her eyes closed she was better and I witnessed her drinking some. Today however she seems worse. I found her in the back of the yard laying down. I can get her to move her head a bit and sometimes she will open her eyes. We did try to feel for eggs to see if that was an issue and didn't feel anything hard. Also I can't see any respiratory issues-snotty eyes, etc. I have no idea how or what I should do to help her.

 

[Teila]

Hi there abita17

I am sorry that Henrietta is unwell and I would like to firstly point out that I am definitely not an expert on what ails chickens but have some questions that might help those more experienced.

If she was my gal, I would probably have ruled out the most common egg laying issues [egg binding or internal laying] as she laid an egg.

Her comb colour looks OK in those pics.

Her poops might help with diagnosis and here are a couple of links to some poop charts:

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=17568.0

http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2012/02/whats-scoop-on-chicken-poop-digestive.html

Also, if you post a picture of her poop in here, it might help others.

Has she been wormed?

Any chance she could have an infestation of lice?

How does her crop feel? Any chance she could have sour or impacted crop?

How are you temperatures at the moment? No chance she is suffering from heat?

 

[abita17]

Hi there abita17

I am sorry that Henrietta is unwell and I would like to firstly point out that I am definitely not an expert on what ails chickens but have some questions that might help those more experienced.

If she was my gal, I would probably have ruled out the most common egg laying issues [egg binding or internal laying] as she laid an egg.

Her comb colour looks OK in those pics.

Her poops might help with diagnosis and here are a couple of links to some poop charts:

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=17568.0

http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2012/02/whats-scoop-on-chicken-poop-digestive.html

Also, if you post a picture of her poop in here, it might help others.

Has she been wormed?

Any chance she could have an infestation of lice?

How does her crop feel?  Any chance she could have sour or impacted crop? 

How are you temperatures at the moment?  No chance she is suffering from heat?

Thank you for your reply! I missed it because along w/my inexperience w/chickens I'm also inexperienced w/posting to forums! I had somehow posted twice- go figure We eventually found out that Henrietta had a respiratory infection- she just didn't start showing physical signs that we could see for days. After treating her ourself we finally found a chicken vet that could prescribe baytril

She's really underweight but after 2 days it's pretty amazing how well she's doing- except that she seems to be excessively drinking water? This may be a good thing? I'm not sure.