The White Lily
In the Brooder
- Jul 4, 2020
- 10
- 15
- 34
Wyatt, my SLW pullet, is ridiculously skinny. Literally, there is nothing either side of her keel, and she’s light as a feather. Her face is sunken in like a skull with eyes. She’s meant to be a standard, and she weighs half as much as my Isa Brown/red sex link, who has been until now the chief scrawny chicken of the coop.
I bought Wyatt as a day old chick from a reputable hatchery. She was raised by a broody in my flock for the first three weeks, then my broody weaned her chicks and went back to roost with the hens. I kept the chicks in with the flock but kept their food and water in a refuge that the hens were too big to squeeze into. There was a little bit of scuffling, but they all grew well and seemed to get plenty to eat. The two boys were acceptably meaty when I processed them at 14 weeks despite being half bantam and no particular fattening. The other four pullets seem healthy and are now well muscled with a good weight, although as at 28 weeks, only one of them has started laying.
Wyatt has never been stout, but I noticed she was unwell about two weeks ago, when I saw her crop was empty in the early evening on the roost. That’s when I felt her keel and realised there was nothing there at all! I wormed her with a dropper in case she’d managed not to drink the last load of worming water. I isolated her where she can still see and be seen by the others, and kept her supplied with high protein food—unlimited chick food, plus a handful of cat food, azolla, and scrambled egg—for a few days, then put her in the main coop but monitored her for a few days more. She went from 1.20kg to 1.27... I felt like it must have been worms, and that she’d turned the corner. Then we went on a week’s holiday—I got back today and she was just hanging out with an empty crop and she weighs 1.115! She’s just a skeleton with feathers. Literally, her keel feels like the bones of a roast chicken once you’ve got off all the meat worth getting. I’ve put her back in semi-isolation with high-protein food.
She’s bright with good feathers and plenty of energy, she still scuffles with the others to get to her favourite food (azolla) whenever I put it in, but she just doesn’t seem to be hungry or care enough to grab more than one or two bites. Even when she does have unlimited close-range access to food, including her favourites, her full crop is still small, maybe a quarter of the size of the full crop the other pullets have—nothing like the bulging crops of the greedy older hens! Her stool looks normal—brown/white and well formed.
Quarters in my coop are possibly a little close (blame chicken math—there is a large run you can’t see in the photo, but they have to come back into the base of the coop you can see for food), and I have a single treadle feeder among ten chickens (and yes, Wyatt is still heavy enough to operate the treadle), but she doesn’t gorge herself the way I would expect if she wasn’t getting near the food often enough. I’ve made sure she’s wormed, I’ve checked for lice/mites. I’m in Brisbane, Australia (weather equivalent of Florida) so we’ve just had the hottest time of year. I know that Wyandottes aren’t well adapted to the heat, but the coop is appropriately built into the shady side of the hill to provide cool refuge. I’ve seen her panting and settling her breast on the ground in the middle of particularly hot days, but not to any extent or period of time I’d have thought she was suffering or might have reduced her appetite to this extent.
Other potentially relevant history: our rooster died suddenly of unknown causes about three months ago. I didn’t do an autopsy, but I confirmed he was well-muscled and seemed in good condition (apart from the obvious). We got a new young BLRW cockerel from a home breeder a month later. He also seems well muscled and in good condition, although he’s a bizarrely late bloomer (6 months old and very clearly rooster-feathered, but still not crowing, strutting, or displaying any rooster behaviours!) It’s possible he brought an illness into the coop and his developmental delay is because he’s unwell—or it’s possible that whatever killed our last rooster remains in our flock.
What does anyone think? An anorexic chicken? Who eats, but not much and goes to bed empty? Loses weight she didn’t have to lose but still acts like a normal chicken? Might have been bullied away from the food but no more than others who seem perfectly healthy? Elbows her way in on treats but doesn’t gorge on them? Most of the advice I read seems to say that chickens will eat food if they need it—or if they’re too sick to eat food they’re sick enough to be visibly off-colour. But I know they’re experts at hiding illness—and a body weight drop of well over 10% in a week in an already skeletal chicken makes me very worried.
Am I freaking out over nothing, or is this chicken one stiff breeze away from death? And is there anything else anyone can suggest I can do to help her?
I bought Wyatt as a day old chick from a reputable hatchery. She was raised by a broody in my flock for the first three weeks, then my broody weaned her chicks and went back to roost with the hens. I kept the chicks in with the flock but kept their food and water in a refuge that the hens were too big to squeeze into. There was a little bit of scuffling, but they all grew well and seemed to get plenty to eat. The two boys were acceptably meaty when I processed them at 14 weeks despite being half bantam and no particular fattening. The other four pullets seem healthy and are now well muscled with a good weight, although as at 28 weeks, only one of them has started laying.
Wyatt has never been stout, but I noticed she was unwell about two weeks ago, when I saw her crop was empty in the early evening on the roost. That’s when I felt her keel and realised there was nothing there at all! I wormed her with a dropper in case she’d managed not to drink the last load of worming water. I isolated her where she can still see and be seen by the others, and kept her supplied with high protein food—unlimited chick food, plus a handful of cat food, azolla, and scrambled egg—for a few days, then put her in the main coop but monitored her for a few days more. She went from 1.20kg to 1.27... I felt like it must have been worms, and that she’d turned the corner. Then we went on a week’s holiday—I got back today and she was just hanging out with an empty crop and she weighs 1.115! She’s just a skeleton with feathers. Literally, her keel feels like the bones of a roast chicken once you’ve got off all the meat worth getting. I’ve put her back in semi-isolation with high-protein food.
She’s bright with good feathers and plenty of energy, she still scuffles with the others to get to her favourite food (azolla) whenever I put it in, but she just doesn’t seem to be hungry or care enough to grab more than one or two bites. Even when she does have unlimited close-range access to food, including her favourites, her full crop is still small, maybe a quarter of the size of the full crop the other pullets have—nothing like the bulging crops of the greedy older hens! Her stool looks normal—brown/white and well formed.
Quarters in my coop are possibly a little close (blame chicken math—there is a large run you can’t see in the photo, but they have to come back into the base of the coop you can see for food), and I have a single treadle feeder among ten chickens (and yes, Wyatt is still heavy enough to operate the treadle), but she doesn’t gorge herself the way I would expect if she wasn’t getting near the food often enough. I’ve made sure she’s wormed, I’ve checked for lice/mites. I’m in Brisbane, Australia (weather equivalent of Florida) so we’ve just had the hottest time of year. I know that Wyandottes aren’t well adapted to the heat, but the coop is appropriately built into the shady side of the hill to provide cool refuge. I’ve seen her panting and settling her breast on the ground in the middle of particularly hot days, but not to any extent or period of time I’d have thought she was suffering or might have reduced her appetite to this extent.
Other potentially relevant history: our rooster died suddenly of unknown causes about three months ago. I didn’t do an autopsy, but I confirmed he was well-muscled and seemed in good condition (apart from the obvious). We got a new young BLRW cockerel from a home breeder a month later. He also seems well muscled and in good condition, although he’s a bizarrely late bloomer (6 months old and very clearly rooster-feathered, but still not crowing, strutting, or displaying any rooster behaviours!) It’s possible he brought an illness into the coop and his developmental delay is because he’s unwell—or it’s possible that whatever killed our last rooster remains in our flock.
What does anyone think? An anorexic chicken? Who eats, but not much and goes to bed empty? Loses weight she didn’t have to lose but still acts like a normal chicken? Might have been bullied away from the food but no more than others who seem perfectly healthy? Elbows her way in on treats but doesn’t gorge on them? Most of the advice I read seems to say that chickens will eat food if they need it—or if they’re too sick to eat food they’re sick enough to be visibly off-colour. But I know they’re experts at hiding illness—and a body weight drop of well over 10% in a week in an already skeletal chicken makes me very worried.
Am I freaking out over nothing, or is this chicken one stiff breeze away from death? And is there anything else anyone can suggest I can do to help her?