Sick Chicken? UPDATED! an egg.

[eggsited chickens]

I have a rhode island red that is looking rather bad. I don't know if this is self pluck or not, but also she started being quite lethargic over the last day and having runny poop. I saw her drink yesterday and I saw her by the feeder although i don't think she actually ate. I had a barred rock that had this earlier this winter and within 3 days she died.

Several of my hens look like her with a lot of feathers missing, although she is the worst. Any ideas what this might be. I've put blue kote, pine tar, I bought some rooster booster no pick lotion and that just comes right off the bare spots. I've looked for bugs and don't see any on them. I've tried upping their protein, and that doesn't seem to help either. Do any of you have suggestions?

 

[OrpingtonManor]

With poop that runny, it's quite possible she's sick and needs an antibiotic.

 

[WitksChicks]

One of my RIR's looked the same way. I watched them closely for a couple of days and found that she was being pecked at by the other 5 hens (the hens were actually pecking and eating the feathers). We check each of the girls closely and found that others had also missing feathers.

We tried everything . . . blue-kote, bag balm, boosting protein, separation of the pecked hen, separation of the most aggressive pecking hen - a BSL, absolutely everything. . . .and. . . . Nothing, nothing worked. So, we had no choice and decided upon trying the last resort. . . pinless peepers. We got a 10 pack of peepers, and last Saturday, and put them on each of the 6 girls (2 RIRs, 2 BSLs and 2 SLWs) and after the few hours it took them to get used to wearing them. A miracle seemed to have happened. The pecking stopped. They've been wearing the peepers for 6 days now, and the feathers that were removed, are now growing back.

These are the pinless peepers we got. . .http://www.randallburkey.com/PIN-LESS-PEEPERS-10-PKG/productinfo/10096/

I just don't know how long we need to keep them on. I'd like to think until the missing feathers grow back. Perhaps someone will chime in and let me know.

 

[eggsited chickens]

witkschicks, how many did you get in the package for $6.99?

 

[eggsited chickens]

I have seen her a few times have really runny poo and then strain to poop out a little terd.

 

[eggsited chickens]

she laid an egg today! I didn't think she was laying at all! Maybe she was eggbound

 

[sarjaysar]

I am from the UK and am installing a variation of the pinless peepers which are called bumper bits!! In fact i've just installed them!!! The hens shook their heads quite a bit and trying to remove them using their feet but so far after an hour they are all still on and the hens are slowly getting used to eating with them on.