Pitnerchickenfarm
In the Brooder
- Apr 17, 2019
- 8
- 4
- 24
We have a 3-4 year old ISA Brown that is acting very sick. We have noticed her slowing down the last couple days, but didn't see anything immediately wrong with her. Yesterday we found her laying down in the coop, extremely lathargic and won't eat or drink. She miraculously made it through the night, but this morning her crop was very large and hard, so we thought sour crop. We massaged her crop and she threw up a significant amount of brown liquid. We then gave her some Nutridrench and she seemed to perk up a little, even started drinking water on her own (still just standing mostly still, and closing eyes often, no eating.) This evening she seemed to decline more and we noticed her lower abdomen seemed large and swollen, and she hasn't laid in a couple days (which for an ISA brown, even on their death bed is unusual), and we also noticed her vent seemed clogged - so we gave her an epsom salt bath, cleaned her bottom and put her under a heat lamp where she seems very comfortable. In the process though, we found two more issues ... incredibly tiny white bugs around her beak and chest (thinking lice, but we don't see any under her wings or near her vent, and no eggs. They also seem to be coming out at night more than during the day) as well as this large black sore below her vent. I know that 3-4 is considered a decently long life for an ISA brown, but I'm wondering if anyone has advice as to if this is all stemming from one main problem or if she's just getting old and so lots of unrelated issues are coming up. We muck out our coop weekly, change water daily, they have a very large run area behind the coop and generally we keep a pretty clean area for them, so this is all very frustrating to find so many issues on one bird all of the sudden. Any advice would be appreciated!
