sick hen PLEASE HELP!

[Alicia G]

I went to do my rounds in the barn tonight and I noticed that one of my serama hens was laying down with her eyes closed. I went to check on her and when she heard me putting feed into her dish she lifted her head up. I left her be as I thought she was tired and carried on with my other barn chores. When I finished i checked on her one last time and I noticed she was still laying ther. At this time my roo thought this was the perfect time to put him moves on the poor hen. I pushed him off and carried her into the house. She is in the basement right now with some hot waterbottles and a blanket over top the cage to give her privacy. But she looks bad, she has labored breathing and is laying down(on her stomach) with her eyes closed. I also noticed that her crop is full. actually its REALLY full. I also checked to see if she was egg bound but I m not sure if she is, it feels like ther maybe something in there but I dont know if its an egg. Ive given her a warm bath, and I tryed giving her some electrlytes(but she only got about a mouth full in) and Ive left water out in case she desides to drink. I got to thinking and I relized the ducks food dish(they eat cracked corn) is right beside the hens cage. Do you think if she ate enough of the corn it would make her this sick?
PLEAS HELP!

 

[purpletree23]

Sorry to hear about your hen. You did the right thing by moving her inside. I have a few questions. When you said you filled her food bowl was it empty? Does she always have access to food?

Cracked corn should not bother her unless she was so hungry from not having her own food that she gobbled up all the corn she could. Has she had access to grit? If not she will not be able to digest the corn and will be crop bound. If she HAS had access to grit she just might be digesting all that corn slowly. If her crop is still hard after a day you might want to consider bringing her to a vet to have the crop emptied surgically or humanly put her down.

She may have also eaten something that was spoiled or something she came across and ate. Are there any chemicals in the barn she could have gotten into or mouse or rat poison?

 

[GoldenCometLover]

There are a lot of tips for crop issues on here...try a search on crop issues. One trick I have seen often is giving a little olive oil and plain yogurt to help if the crop is impacted...hope this helps

edited for spelling

 

[Alicia G]

Shes doing much better. She layed a soft shelled egg this morning so I think that (and the fact she ate WAY too much) is what was making her feel ill.
As for feeding her, each pair gets around 1/3 cup of layer feed in the morning and 1/3 cup feed at night (they are seramas chickens by the way) I find the hens will eat what ever they can fit in their beak, their all a little on the chubby side so they ovbiously arent starving