Sick Hen

[JewellChicks]

She had a nice poop in her cage when I went to give her dinner.

But I did not give her any dinner tonight because her crop was still kind of full from lunch and there was an odd mucus film in her mouth. I tried to give some water and could not "pop" the mucus film.

I am kind of kicking myself because I added just a little bit of cooked cream of rice to her food. I saw someone said rice flower is good. I asked my mom to get some rice flower and she came home with that so I added just a little tinny bit and cooked it... But maybe it was not cooked enough ahhh... I hope it is not expanding in side of her. But it was like 1/4 of a tsp to about 1/2 of a cup of other food.

She is in a large cat kennel in side the house with water available.

Does the mucus film sound like anything to anyone?

Still no bad smell from her mouth.

 

[JewellChicks]

string of mucus was hanging from her beak last time I checked...

Any ideas. I am worried now.

 

[ten chicks]

string of mucus was hanging from her beak last time I checked...

Any ideas. I am worried now.

Unfortunately it could be her body shutting down,dying process. Could you have accidentally got water in her lungs? I read through thread very fast,but from what i can tell she has not been getting the appropriate food(vitamins,mineral,etc)or possibly enough food to sustain her body.

What does she have impacted or sour crop? Has her crop ever emptied or is it always full? How does her poop look?

 

[JewellChicks]

Quote:

Unfortunately it could be her body shutting down,dying process. Could you have accidentally got water in her lungs? I read through thread very fast,but from what i can tell she has not been getting the appropriate food(vitamins,mineral,etc)or possibly enough food to sustain her body.

What does she have impacted or sour crop? Has her crop ever emptied or is it always full? How does her poop look?

Yeah I may have got water in her lungs. I was using a different syringe maybe I squirted too much or too hard, oh no. Any way to tell? I was putting food/ water in her mouth and letting her swallow it. I did not have the things for tube feeding and was kind of nervous to try it. I hope it did not hurt her.

Not sure if it is impacted or sour. Her mouth does not smell bad. Or did not last time I smelt it tonight when I went to feed her. The corp is not hard. It is just taking time to move food. At first she was just skinny and not eating so I treated for worms, found mites or other bug parasites and treated for them. Thought she may just need help getting food until the treatments worked. Or it was some sort of reproductive problems and the mites and slow crop were just a byproduct so to speak.

Her crop was emptying more before... always seemed to be about the size of a ping pong ball until I gave her food. I have not felt many corps full and empty so it is hard for me to tell what is empty all the way.

Before her poops were watery. She was outside so they would soak into the dirt. Now inside they look better, more solid. A few days ago one had what looked to be a piece of grass. I did not look too closely at the most recent ones. But I was happy to see they looked normal. I will examine them more closely in the morning.

I have been worried about the food. But not sure what to feed her. Any ideas, that has been a hard thing for me to figure out. I need to feed in with a syringe right now so I have been going with egg yolk, apple sauce, yogurt and molasses. I think the cream of rice was a mistake.

 

[JewellChicks]

This morning:

Poop was dark more normal looking. Not fully as hard as a fully normal poop, but better.

Her mouth was not as mucusy.

Gave her the food mixture until her crop was full.

She has water and cat food available to her in her cage.

What else can I be feeding her? Just has been egg yolk, apple sauce, yogurt and molasses. And water.

 

[JewellChicks]

Anyone know if that exact brand for hand feeding of all baby birds food is okay for a sick chicken? It has parrots and those kind of birds on the package. It looks like it has a lot of healthy nutritious stuff.

 

[JewellChicks]

Well sadly we had to put her down this morning.

She had taken a turn for the worst. Her head was down eyes closed.
We did a necropsy on our own the best we could. Mostly a learning exploitative venture.

We found:
- No egg
- Some yellowing inside her cavity (not sure if it was just fat or something more)
- Large hard white masses on her intestine mostly lower maybe some on upper.
- Lots of grass throughout her digestive system mostly in her lower intestine
- Gizzard had grit, and lots of soft mussy material (but I was feeding her a soft diet).
- No worms
- I may have punctured the gallbladder while I was looking around, but it looked different, the tissue was thinner.

Looks like maybe it was the grass that caused the blockage and her digestive track to slow down. The olive oil then molasses flush may have been too little too late. Or something was not functioning normally because I would think the gizzard would have broke up the grass more, but maybe not.

I was not worried about grit before because the chickens have a lime stone-ish sand in their coop as the floor and go outside in the afternoon were they have access to lots of rocks and dirt. We have been providing oyster shells for their egg production, but maybe we should get some grit as well.

I will take this as a learning experience so I will act sooner and have a better idea what to do if this happens again. I would not want her do die in vein. I was happy to not see any worms so I do not have to worry about the whole flock being infested.

I really appreciate all the help with trying to save the poor girl. It has helped to have some input during this all.