Sick chicken

[olsta]

Hi there. One of our girls (Rhode Island Red, ex-barn layer) has gradually been getting more and more inactive for about the past week. She's off her food, but will eat with some encouragement and still seems to want to drink. We've got some Tylan from the vet yesterday evening, but we've yet to see any improvement.

Her poop is really wet, so we're trying our best to keep her hydrated. She's also constantly pecks at her leg feathers and legs as they have got some vaseline on them from when we treated her scaly leg. Can't seem to stop her doing this and her legs seem to be giving her some trouble (we've tried vaseline, olive oil and some scaly leg stuff from a pet shop, but none of it seems to be working yet)

She's been given some mite treatment as well, which seems to have worked as I've found a lot of dead mites on her.

I've got her inside in the warm, and she spends most of the time just puffed up with her eyes closed

Not sure whether we're being fair keeping her going, but I want to at least give her the full course of antibiotics and do everything we can for her. We've had her over 2 years, so I was thinking it might just be her time, but I don't know.

Anyone know what else we could try?

Thanks.

 

[Judy]

It's possible she got that sick just from the mite infestation, if it was severe enough.

I would give some probiotics when the Tylan is completed, to replace her gut flora. If you haven't wormed her, and if she improves some, you might give a course of Valbazen, which is not as hard as them as some wormers, and kills essentially all the worms chickens get. It's a cattle wormer. Give 0.5 ml by mouth then repeat in 10 days. Toss eggs for 21 days. I put the medicine on a bite of bread. (If you have other birds, I would worm them all at once.)

Does she have any swelling in her abdomen, or near her vent, or does it seem like there is any fluid buildup in her abdomen? Do you know whether she is still laying?

I hope she improves. I understand aboout your not wanting her to suffer. Hopefully, it's not yet time to make that unpleasant decision. I'll give you some links that might help.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/vme-fact/0018.html

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...ll-seeing-live-worms-in-poo/0_20#post_9315842

http://healthybirds.umd.edu/Disease/Deworming Birds.pdf

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/chicken-injuries-diseases-how-to-diagnose-treat-your-chickens

 

[olsta]

Thanks you so much for the advice. I'll get some probiotics for her once the antibiotics course has finished.

She doesn't appear to have any swelling and the vet didn't mention anything like that when we took her yesterday.

She's actually perked up just a little bit in the last couple of hours - she's eating and drinking without any real encouragement from me, although she's not eating a great deal and she's still lethargic. Any advice of what I could feed her to keep her going? She's not interested in that much at the moment, apart from tomatoes and a some breakfast cereal. I was thinking about getting some strawberries and maybe some other fruit.

 

[Judy]

Be sure to keep her regular feed available. Mix a little with some plain yogurt or butermilk if you have some; sometimes they will accept it better. Eggs are good: I scramble them, or you can hard boil or whatever you want. A bit of your leftover supper is good; the veggies and meat will be nourishing. They usually love grated cheese -- a little salty, but right now she could probably use the salt, and it's animal protein which is good.