Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[JacinLarkwell]

This is Matilda.
In the first picture she is not aware that I am looking at her. I'm a bit of a distance away and pretending to look elsewhere.
Her tail is a bit down and her head slightly sunken into her breast.
In the second picture she knows I'm looking at her. She now looks alert and her taill is up.
Is Matilda sick?
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I would say yes she is. I've had hens not doing too hot that put on a show when they think someone sees them

 

[Shadrach]

I haven't named this young terror yet. She's pretty brazen and demanding. I have been working on her beak though. She jumps onto my lap of her own accord and is calm enough to gently file the top beak towards a better point and her bottom beak back which needs to be shorter tha the top. The top was cut flat when she was in the battery.
You can see that the bottom beak protrudes too far in the picture.

 

[Shadrach]

Three out of five on the watch list.

There are four crested cream legbars here. They all have this problem. It seems that their tail feathers attract feather pluckers.

 

[Marie2020]

These two I named Volt and Amp. They are apparently Red Rocks. I’ve never come across the breed before; Black Rocks yes, but these…
Amp LHS Volt RHS
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They didn’t mix much with any of the other groups and tended to go around together. Henry the rooster was not fond of either of them. They looked reasonably healthy when I first started going to the allotments but I did wonder a bit about why Henry would drive them away from the other hens especially when food was involved.
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Volt went from looking active and alert to a bit subdued in the space of 24 hours. I put it down to either the onset of moult or just one of those off days. She was like this for a couple of days and at that point I was concerned enough to take her home and check her over properly. She had fairly extensive feather mite but more concerning was she had lice. Ime healthy chickens rarely get lice, mites yes but lice most chickens will peck off if the are fit and if they won’t in a some of the family groups I’ve known, their rooster will pick the lice off when he sees them.
Volt


I didn’t have a pet carrier so I carried Volt home in a shopping basket. It would have looked a rather strange sight as I walked home along a major road with a hens head occasional appearing out of the top of the shopping bag.
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Not only did she have lice and mites, she also had ascitis (water belly).

If you run your hand under a hens rear end and feel a much softer and larger bulge below the hens vent and up to between her legs that is likely to be ascitis. The easiest way to know what you are feeling for is to feel a few hens in this area and make a comparison. It is fairly apparent once you’ve felt a hen who is suffering from it.

Volt spent the night in the shed in a large container with a soft towel as bedding she ate a very little ad dozed off as I watched. The next morning she wouldn’t eat any commercial feed but did eat a bit of grass. I took her back to the allotment later that day so she could be with her sister (?) and the rest of the group.
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I had dealt with most of the lice that night using permethrin at the back of her neck and under her wings. She seemed slightly more comfortable the next day.

I took her home the following night when she made no signs of heading towards the coop long after the rest had gone to roost.

The next day she wouldn’t eat and I carried her back to the allotments knowing that what would now be best for her was a quick end to her life. I placed her in the small broody coop that night. There is a hen that roosts in there so she had some company. I did my best to make her a comfortable nest bed.

She was euthanised early the next morning.

Could you have drained the fluid? Or was it not an option, had the ascites turned cancerous?

 

[NatJ]

Could you have drained the fluid? Or was it not an option, had the ascites turned cancerous?

Keep reading, because the answer is two posts further on:

A bit about Ascitis.
Ascitis itself is not so much a disease as a symptom. There is no cure...

You can, and people have drained the belly of excess fluid but this does absolutely nothing for the underlying problem.

 

[Marie2020]

Keep reading, because the answer is two posts further on:

That's daunting. Please pardon my ignorance.

 

[Sequel]

@RoyalChick and @Ribh
I hope we are not gate crashing

Well I’m gate crashing too!

 

[RoyalChick]

Well I’m gate crashing too!

I think we are all welcome and I am sure Shad will make it clear if we are not.

 

[NatJ]

That's daunting. Please pardon my ignorance.

I do recommend reading to the end of the thread before asking questions about what was posted

But I was also surprised to read that ascitis is not curable-- I've never personally dealt with it, but I had assumed that because it is caused by an underlying condition it should be treatable by treating the underlying condition, while also draining the fluid to prevent the fluid itself from causing further trouble.

 

[LaFleche]

There are four crested cream legbars here. They all have this problem. It seems that their tail feathers attract feather pluckers.

Spraying their behinds and tails with BlueKote will stop this attraction.

Is Matilda sick?

Her foot in the second picture seems to be affected by scaly leg mites. You can easily treat them by spraying Ballistol animal spray up to the feathery part of the leg. Spraying every other evening for ten consecutive days.

https://ballistol-uk.com/product/ballistol-animal-care-oil/