sick hen please help

[sneaton1]

is half gatorade half water a good thing to give sick chickens to perk them up? i also gave her some plain yogurt

 

[schellie69]

You use layer feed once the pullets start laying. Is she laying yet if not there might be to much calcium in the layer feed for her. I would go to a flock raiser something with like 18% protein. Do you allow them to free range do you offer grit to them. I am not sure if they are carriers of something if you could eat the eggs, You need to think about other birds around you also that could be effected by your birds. Some illness are passed through the feathers. I would really think about what the illness is before you eat the eggs. Also a chicken will only lay for so many years what are your plans for these chickens once their egg production drops. These are questions you need to answer also.

 

[MotherJean]

Yes, you can eat those eggs even when they're coughing and sneezing and have snotty noses. I just wouldn't recommend eating them while you are treating with antibiotics...IF you treat them with antibiotics. As you might imagine, while a hen is sick she'll generally lay less often and may even stop when she's feeling her worst. Once they recover, they generally start laying again although, again, they may lay less often.

Several posts back you asked about the possibility of food allergy. I think that's unlikely.

When I get a hen who's off her feed, I can usually get her to eat by making a warm mush of her layer feed and a little yogurt. For one hen I'd mix 1/3 cup of layer crumbles with hot water to make a thick mush and add 1 Tablespoon of yogurt. The sulfur in molasses is very good for a sick bird, too. I you have any on hand, you could mix in a teaspoon of that, as well.

 

[sneaton1]

She isnt laying yet.(shes 4 1/2 months old). She seems to be getting better not worse cause she is still walking around, able to fly up and roost, and can still put up a fight when im feeding her with the dropper. Her only symptoms are :she just isnt eating that much on her own and has i little bit of a runny nose. No eye boogers, foul smell,poopy butt,or cough. So i think whatever it is it has to be mild

 

[sneaton1]

will egg production eventually recover to normal in a sick laying hen?

 

[sneaton1]

thanks mother jean

 

[sneaton1]

she has been eating the mash water yogurt mix and drinking on her own today, she is also more active. do you think she is out of the worst part of the sickness? its day six

 

[MotherJean]

Yes, I think she might be coming out of the worst of it. In another week she'll probably appear pretty normal, but keep up good invalid nutrition. BTW, as Schellie69 mentioned, it's really not wise to feed layer mash to hens that have not started laying. The calcium level is too high and can cause illness due to kidney calcification. If all of your birds are 4 to 4 1/2 mos. old, I suggest switching them back to Starter/Grower or Flock Raiser for the next month or so. Once you start collecting eggs, you can resume the layer mash and also make sure that they have oyster shell available so you get good strong eggs.

 

[sneaton1]

the food im using is prince animal feed. 20 percent protein 3.5 percent calcium is that to high for a 4 1/2 month old. they also free range 4 hours a day. i do have a older(unknown age but full grown)red star hen that has been laying daily so thats why i have been feeding the layer

 

[MotherJean]

Yeah, I think that's probably too much calcium for them so I'd switch back to the something like the Grower or Flock Raiser. So long as you supply oyster shell to the Red Star, she should get ample calcium. You shouldn't have too many more weeks before the young ones start laying, so just get a small bag. The problem with the overdose of calcium is that when the body doesn't need it for egg shells, it tries to get rid of it. The kidneys filter it out and it can accumulate either into kidney stones or by calcifying (hardening) a portion of the kidney itself. Kidney stones are painful, but calcified kidneys are deadly. In extreme cases, the kidneys will fail and the chicken will slowly waste away and die.