Second Sick Hen

[Barbara2013]

I'm a new chicken owner looking for some wise words. I have a hen who isn't feeling well. She's somewhat lethargic, with just a mild interest in food. Three months ago, I had another hen (a barred rock) who started showing the same symptoms. I thought she might be egg-bound, but that wasn't the case. For two months she'd go back and forth, seeming to get better, then worse again. First just lots of drinking and very watery poop. Then lots of stillness, lying around (while the rest of the flock was free-ranging) often closing her eyes, eating less and less, and sleeping in the nesting box instead of up on the roost. We ended up losing her. Now a month later, this second hen (a black sexlink) is showing the same early symptoms. Our five chickens are dear to me and my children. They are 18 months old, and we've had them for a year. They stay in a 6 x 10 coop and are let out to free-range every afternoon. We are a natural-first, organic kind of family, but we will do what is necessary to keep our chickens healthy and happy.

 

[A Chicken Owner]

Is her poo green or bloody

 

[Barbara2013]

Green. And a little watery.

 

[A Chicken Owner]

Defenetly sick. If you want you could by liquid infant multivitamin WITHOUT iron and buy a syringe to administer it. Adding some sugar to creamed corn might encourage her to eat more. My leghorn died the same way except her poo was normal. She was improving after I bought her the multivitamin but I think she choked on a grain because she was weak

 

[Barbara2013]

I'm thinking that since the timing is so far apart with the two sick hens, it must be something in the environment. I use a deep litter method, the coop is dry and does not smell. But maybe I'm doing something wrong? Or could there be something toxic in the yard that they're getting into? I'm leaning toward treating the whole flock (5 hens) but I'm not sure if antibiotics are the thing to do.

 

[cafarmgirl]

Any guesses are pretty much a shot in the dark, those symptoms can indicate a lot of different things. Have they been dewormed and checked for lice/mites?

Sometimes all you can do is treat the symtoms the best you know how and see how it goes. The alternative is a very expensive trip to an avian vet, if you have one nearby, to try to come up with a diagnosis. Sometimes you get answers sometimes you don't but you always spend a lot of $$$ in the process!

I have a hen showing these same symptoms. I started her on antibiotic's a week ago and she's much improved. But, I still have no idea what the problem is/was or if it will return when the meds are done. Shot in the dark attempt to save her, we'll see how it goes.

Good luck, wish I had better info for you.

 

[Barbara2013]

I appreciate your responses. It seems the more I talk to veteran chicken owners, the more common this appears to be. I didn't know getting into this that chickens were so fragile. Kind of heartbreaking.

 

[cafarmgirl]

They are actually pretty tough! It's amazed me many times what a chicken can recover from and how long a chicken can walk around, hiding some kind of illness for as long as they do sometimes. The problem is that so often symptoms are vague and many disease symptoms mimic each other, so it's often hard to pin down exactly what the problem is in order to treat it. And of course by the time they are feeling so crummy that we are able to see symptoms they are often pretty far along. I've had chickens live for years with nary a health problem, I've had others that seemed plagued by this or that, as well as worked through an outbreak of infectious bronchitis in my whole flock. If you have chickens long enough eventually you are going to come up with sick ones. There's good times and bad times, it's all part of the package. I've had chickens for years and it still makes me sad when I loose one.