sick chicken

[AZKACHICKABAN-ER]

My little Sebright seems to be coming down with something and i don't know what...her symptoms are really sleepy and she just puked up opaque-ish looking liquid and shook her head which sent it everywhere...is this justa cold and i have nothing to worry about? or is it something else, she is only 7 wks old. thanks every one!

 

[silkiechicken]

More info on what she is eating, her living conditions, how her crop feels, what her poos look like, the type of bedding, how her growth rate is, if she is thin and loosing weight, and so on would help a lot in figuring out what is wrong.

 

[AZKACHICKABAN-ER]

Sylvia was 7 weeks old, on starter chick feed and was living in a chicken tractor by day with 2 other chickens from the same hatchery born on the same day, August. 6th, a silver polish and a mystery bantam. At night I would bring them in @ 6pm to the house into their "coop" the brooder set-up that I made for all my chickens -the 3 previous chickens, that has a roost in it and a light to keep them warm, which I had been turning off lately because of wanting to harden them off before i introduced them to existing flock. Sylvia may have been on the small side but she was a sebright bantam after all, but no smaller than my mystery bantam that was born the same day. She was fine 2 days ago, still occasionally eating and everything, but had stopped drinking water...she does not have all these other symptoms that I keep reading about on here and other sources, she just stopped thriving, and unfortunately I found her dead last night when I went to check on her before went to bed.

 

[AZKACHICKABAN-ER]

She also had cedar shavings on her floor in the coop but had grass to hang on with the chicken tractor. I separated her from the other two and when I realized something was wrong with her and brought her in and wrapped her up in a towel and held her to keep her warm and that is when she puked a large amount of viscous type clear-ish fluid. That night i cleaned out a new coop- a large plastic tub and put all new shaving down after cleaning it out with bleach to see what her poop looked like and she had been pooping dark, watery-ish but somewhat solid and that was small in size compared to the usual. The other two thank God seem to be fine so far, but I am keeping them in during the day now because it has been raining here in good old Seattle and I don't want to take the chance of the other two getting sick either in case whatever it was is contagious. I am really sad and didn't sleep much last night...now I don't know what to do with her body, do I burn her? I don't think I can throw her in the garbage and frankly don't want to but I don't want to bury her either in case some critter or one of the 3 dogs decides to dig... what should I do?

 

[ChickaD]

I'm so sorry for your loss....:aww
Cedar shavings aren't good for chickens; you can do a search on it here at BYC. Just plain pine is safer.

When one of our older gals dies, we just bury her in the edge of our yard, or across the road where it's all wild. Just be sure to bury down deep enough so there's at least 1 ft of dirt on top, tamped down firm.

Hope things go better for you now...and I want to welcome you to BYC - a really great, caring bunch of people who love raising chickens.

 

[AZKACHICKABAN-ER]

thank you, i live in the city so there really is no place to bury her except in my yard and there is my concern, I think we will burn her in our fire pit thing-y...

 

[ChickaD]

Yes, burning is a good choice and it will get rid of any germs, etc.