really skinny chicken

[seminolewind]

Yea, what a little water won't do!

 

[abooot99]

I am not sure if the vet checked her for mites or not. You would think they'd do that routinely but who knows. I was looking at her down to her skin in a few places and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. I checked the base of her neck and base of her tail.
I ended up bringing her in and fed her ground up vegis, a scambled egg, applesauce, I ground up the pellets. She ate quite a bit. I noticed she would be standing and all of a sudden her tail end would go down like she needs to sit. I'd say maybe due to weakness? Given the amount of weight loss she has had, I would guess that. What do you all think. Its like she is trying to appear standing with her neck up straight but she is semi laying on her legs.
I havent seen any droppings yet but she just came in. I left all the food down for her and water. She seemed thirsty. I mixed water with the apple sauce to get her more fluids. She is in my spare bedroom on the floor in a blocked off area.

I wonder if my external parasites exam wasn't thorough. I think I recall you should do this at night with a flashlite- I will attempt to do this tonight.

This poor bird just isn't right. I wish I could figure it out and get her back to normal.

Thanks for the input and keep it coming. I need alot of help and guidance.

 

[seminolewind]

I found out the hard way that around the vent is the best place to check. I have this chicken with a broken leg from the neighbor, and I saw a speck moving on her, but in all I only saw 2 mites, but that was enough. Then I didn't see not one louse, but then I checked her vent and they were having a party there!

 

[Sunflower]

I recently had some problems with a hen and wanted to bring her in the house. We put her in a newer rabbit cage we had on hand. It worked really well and we just covered it with towels to keep the cats & dogs from nosing around too much. Good luck with miss skinny. Sounds like you're on the right track.

 

[PandoraTaylor]

I use pet porter kennels for my hens when they need to come in, and keep them in the bathroom so i can let them out several times a day to eat & drink. the Pet porters are easier to keep warm than the dog crates I have.

i would bring her in and try to get vitamins & electrolytes into her.

 

[abooot99]

So, I've had her in the house all day in my spare bedroom. It doesn't appear that she ate too much if at all. Her crop was not bulging like it should. I work all day so couldn't be there all day for small feedings. I went to the pharmacy in hopes of finding poly-visol and coudn't find it. So, I bought chicken and vegi baby food and another flavor and some pedi-lyte flavorless to get some lytes into her. So tonight, she ate quite a bit. I am afraid she isn' t drinking alot if at all either. I gave her ground up pellets in her baby food and she ate about half a small jar. She also ate some fruit yogurt I had. I thought she ate alot for her. I wish I could feed her all day but thats not an option. I mixed the pedilyte in with the baby food and yogurt as I couldn't get her to drink it herself. So, she did pass a few stools. They appear dark green, smallish and with the white urates mixed in. It looks like there isn't enough food in her to make big stools like the others her size produce. So, I guess I will continue her treatment as is and monitor with my fingers crossed.

I will check for mites. How do I look at her vent? What position do I put her in?

 

[honeydoll]

Quote:
There are two types of mites. Let me tell you my experience. I have 6 comets and 4 chanteclers, 1 mix and 2 dominiques. My doms were for meat, but all my chickens were somewhat skinny and kept getting skinnier over several months. I didn't know what was going on, I even made some posts to get some advice. Now they are so skinny their keel bone is sharp. I knew I had to take action and find out what was behind this. THis week egg laying tapered off pretty fast. I read and read and found out to look for mites, not lice, but mites I need to do it at night when the mites become active. BINGO! Mites, bad. I pride myself on a clean, low stink coop, but I had little black mites by the hundreds. They were sucking my hens dry. I would check the chickens in the day and see nothing. So I kept missing the problem. Look under their roosts, nest boxes in the day and see if you see any, they will be where it's dark. I never saw them under the roosts, but I use DE in my coop, I think that prevented that. But I bought hay from a local nursery for their nest boxes and that is where it came from, we dug in the hay and thousands, I swear, of little black mites were in it. It took me months to find out I was bringing in mites with the hay, never buy it from them again. I used Ivormectin Pour on for cattle on my birds yesterday, we'll see how it goes. I added cracked corn to their diet, 1:3 ratio to add on weight and bought higher protein feed, Purina flock raiser. Owning chickens is a learning process, mites can be a serious problem, and really ultimately kill your chickens. Another sign of mites, is your eggs may have little reddish brown spots on them where they crush mites filled with blood as they fall into the nest box. I had this and wondered why my eggs had little speckles on them. Hope this gives you some direction. My chickens were much more active today and ate well and acted like the good ole days.

 

[darkfur]

could be a viral disease, these won't show up on a fecal

 

[abooot99]

Alright guys,
I am really reaching. She is still in the house. Tonight I looked her over with a flash light around her vent and under her wings. Now I am only 26 and my eyes aren't bad but how small are we talking for mites? I looked for a while.

What I did notice was her skin was very flaky, her toes were almost with scabs on them. Where some of the scales end there is a scab looking thing. It looks like her scaly legs are corroded. I wonder if its just from her weight loss. I looked closely and found nothing like mites. There isn't any blood or anything. Idk.

Her skin is super flaky under her feathers in some places. She is just so fluffy but there really is nothing to her. She keeps passing stools with alot of watery urates and not alot of stool. I am not sure she is eating/drinking much when I am gone. She seems hungry when I get home and when I feed her from a spoon, she gobbles it right up. Weak-definately.

Anyone have advice on what I do next? I feel bad but don't know enough about birds.

What the hell.

Im frusterated.

 

[HorseFeatherz NV]

Sounds like she * might * have scaly leg mites. Do you have vaseline, veggie cooking oil or mineral oil? If so coat her legs/feet every other day or third day (I think) - this will soften the scale, oil will smother the mite and bring her some relief. The old infected scales will fall off and new will grow.


Do you think she might have a problem seeing? Just wondering if she only seems to be eating when you feed her. If you put some treats down, does she eat/peck at them or ignore them?



I say might because I have never yet had to deal with leg mites - but it is only a mater of time.