Sick chicken: Lethargic, soft/watery crop, bubbly poo

[ZenChicken]

First time post here. I didn't think my first post would be in this category but I'm worried about one of my hens. She's been lethargic and uninterested in food all day. I thought it was just because of the heat (been about 85 degrees so not too terribly hot) but tonight I decided to check her out a little closer. She has a large watery feeling crop. I thought maybe sour crop so I tipped her upside down and a little water came out. It didn't smell bad so I'm hoping I can rule that out.

As I'm watching her she poops a small amount of watery/bubbly yellow and possibly red tinted dropping and that got me really worried because it doesn't look normal at all.

Their coop and run are in the shade and it has been somewhat breezy today so I'm thinking the heat wouldn't be causing too much distress but I'm at a loss about what to do.

Does anybody have any suggestions about what I should do?

Thanks so much!

 

[FlyHigher]

First time post here. I didn't think my first post would be in this category but I'm worried about one of my hens. She's been lethargic and uninterested in food all day. I thought it was just because of the heat (been about 85 degrees so not too terribly hot) but tonight I decided to check her out a little closer. She has a large watery feeling crop. I thought maybe sour crop so I tipped her upside down and a little water came out. It didn't smell bad so I'm hoping I can rule that out.

As I'm watching her she poops a small amount of watery/bubbly yellow and possibly red tinted dropping and that got me really worried because it doesn't look normal at all.

Their coop and run are in the shade and it has been somewhat breezy today so I'm thinking the heat wouldn't be causing too much distress but I'm at a loss about what to do.

Does anybody have any suggestions about what I should do?

Thanks so much!

Sounds like coccidiosis and bacteria to me, but not sure.

 

[ZenChicken]

Update:

I decided to take her to the local vet. The vet wasn't a chicken expert but had owned chickens before and most of the assistants that work there also own chickens. She said she'd take a look and see what we could do.

I took in a sample of her runny droppings and they looked at it under the microscope. Most of the cells were red blood cells, which she interpreted as a probable bacterial infection. She injected an antibiotic because the crop was not emptying and anything given orally would just sit in the crop and do no good.

The vet believed that in a lot of cases, a crop that isn't emptying (like my pullet's watery/squishy crop) is a symptom of a bigger problem but not the root cause.

There was no definite diagnosis but I'm going to bring in a dropping sample from one of the healthy chickens so they can also check for parasites.

Maybe this is all overkill for a chicken but it's really amazing how attached I've become to my flock. I really hope she recovers.

 

[ZenChicken]

Another update:

It looks like the injected antibiotics are working. Last night the crop started emptying and she ate some yoghurt. Droppings are looking more normal this morning. She also ate more yoghurt and some of the crumbles and generally looks more perky (standing more than sitting). I need to give her oral antibiotics for the next 4 days so she'll be staying inside and quarantined during that time.

I'm going to stop by TSC and pick up some antibiotics to have around in case any of the other birds start to look droopy. I've heard folks on this forum mention Clorid or Sulmet for chickens. Is one better than the other? I've also thought about getting some electrolytes for her water to give her a few more vitamins.

Can anyone think of anything else I should be doing?

 

[ZenChicken]

One last update:

It looks like she's going to pull through this. She improved to the point where she didn't want to be in her quarantine cage any longer and would try to push past us when we opened the door. We figured she was strong enough at that point that she could go back outside and it was probably better to be able to move around a little bit. She still needs to take the antibiotics twice a day for several more days so we returned her back to the flock Saturday afternoon with a band on her leg so we would know which one to treat. On Sunday she started looking a little droopy again but has slowly regained her strength. As of today, she's looking just as perky as the rest of the flock and is eating like a champ.

I figured out after some research that Corid and Sulmet are treatments for coccidiosis, not bacteria. So I bought some Tetracycline antibiotics from TLC to try with the rest of the flock if others started to look sick. Fortunately, no other birds have shown any symptoms, other than some runny droppings here and there.