Scrawny chickens!! Not acting sick or anything.

[jen5680]

This is not an emergency but I have noticed that a few of my
ladies are soooo scrawny!! When I pick them up there is just
nothing to them. What could be the cause of this? They eat and drink
and don't act sick or anything. I give them a good diet and they gets
lots of treats.
Thanks for any info I can get.

 

[purpletree23]

Maybe too many treats? 90% of their diet should be a nutritionally complete layer pellet with a bowl of chicken grit and crushed oyster shell available at all times nearby. Also fresh water.

Weight loss could be worm infestation or a mite or lice problem.

Check them for mites and lice and if you don't find any you might want to consider worming.

What kind of hen are they? Are they a light weight breed so they produce a lot of eggs or a heavier bird that produces eggs and can be used for meat?

 

[jen5680]

Quote:
No they don't get to many treats so that isn't the problem and I have never seen any mights on them.
They also gte fresh water daily so maybe I will try worming them.
They are silkies.
Thanks.

 

[Hutton]

i would only worm them with food grade diatomaceous earth by perma-guard.keep 1 to 2% in the feed and internal parasites will never be a problem.after 2 short weeks you will see a big improvment.for 50 years "DE"has made poultry healthy.you can also put it in the chicken bath box and good by mites and fleas.our silkie(boo boo) is a batam blue shes tiny.shes seting on about 15 eggs.2 are hers.the other 13 are my white face black spanish eggs.boo boo got broadie.so i put her to work..good luck www.organicworldproducts.com

 

[Hutton]

i would only worm them with food grade diatomaceous earth by perma-guard.keep 1 to 2% in the feed and internal parasites will never be a problem.after 2 short weeks you will see a big improvment.for 50 years "DE"has made poultry healthy.you can also put it in the chicken bath box and good by mites and fleas.our silkie(boo boo) is a batam blue shes tiny.shes seting on about 15 eggs.2 are hers.the other 13 are my white face black spanish eggs.boo boo got broadie.so i put her to work..good luck www.organicworldproducts.com

 

[chookchick]

I have to respectfully disagree with Hutton. DE will not get rid of an active infestation of worms. It MAY help keep the worm load down. But I don't really see how DE could kill anything inside the intestines, as it is completely inactivated by water (kills by dessicating the insect or worm). If you want to worm for the first time, I would suggest starting with Wazine, then Ivermectin or similar.

Here's a good post about worming:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=222384

 

[jen5680]

Wouldn't it just be easier to use the vermectin and then that would be all
I would need to use wouldn't it?

 

[teach1rusl]

And I'll ask how old they are. Because if they're fairly young pullets, then I think it just takes them a while to fill out... My girls seem to just now be filling out a bit, at almost six months, and I still think they're kind of small, though not skinny. You could cut out treats for a week or so and see if there's any change too.

 

[theFox]

Quote:
The Ivermectin may cause the birds systems to be overloaded because of the volume of worms killed in a very quick time.

Using the other one first gets rid of one kind of worms and reducing the load placed on the chicks systems that using a broad spectrum wormer like Ivermectin does.

In short just using the Ivermectin by itself as a first wormer may kill your birds simply because it will nail all of the worms at one time.

 

[jen5680]

Quote:
Well I am kinda guessing but i would say that are around 5 months old and they are silkies so maybe they
just have some growing to do?????? The males seem to be ok but 2 of the girls are the ones I was wondering about.
All the other ones seem to be ok, just not the 2.