Sick pullet

[Eggcessive]

Is her foot a little swollen? It's hard to tell in photos, but I see a leg band? Is that too tight?
Did she perk up more after she laid the egg?
I would re-check the crop first thing in the morning before she's had anything to eat/drink.
I agree getting her hydrated is a good idea. Check her for lice/mites while you are at it.

Good eye on the leg band. I would remove it right away.

 

[Geranium]

No, the leg band moves freely on her ankle. Her crop was empty in the morning and she gobbled up some mealworms and water with Sav-a-chick vitamin electrolyte mix. She's back outside and seems almost back to normal. But I let the other girls out into the yard and found one of my Buff Orpingtons dead in the run. They had been out in the yard yesterday and everyone seemed fine. I put them back into their run about an hour or two before sundown. They put themselves to roost in the coop so I didn't check on them again. This morning, the BO was on her back in the corner of the run. She hatched an egg two weeks ago and lost a lot of weight brooding. I'm wondering if it's the heat getting to them. It's a rough time of year here. It was nearly 100 degrees yesterday.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'm sorry to hear about your BO.
Can you send the body to your state lab to find out the cause? Some of us do our own necropsies as well to see if we find anything obvious like Fatty Liver disease and reproductive problems. If that's something you would like to do, I can give you links to necropsy manual or your state lab.

I am glad that your hen for the original post is doing better.
Heat is a killer of chickens. Do they have plenty of shade? Electrolytes in the water for a day may also be beneficial.

 

[azygous]

One thing you can do to mitigate the effect of heat on your chickens is to fill a bowl up with ices cubes and let them play with it. Some chickens will stand in it. Others will drink the melt water.

Another thing is to wet down your run. The evaporation will lower the ground temp ten degrees. Of course shade is absolutely necessary as is moving air with a fan if necessary.

Keep an eye out for signs of heat stress and dehydration. What you will see is very red combs and facial tissue, and balance problems. That's when you need to cool the chicken down quickly and administer electrolytes. A cool wet wash cloth in the wings pits is good first aid for heat stroke.

 

[Geranium]

They have lots of shade and water. I've been putting out a frozen water bottle and frozen corn in ice. Today I put out some terra cotta saucers filled with ice cubes in their favorite shade spots. They won't go into water willingly, but I was thinking of making them a muddy area, because they will go into mud.

Unfortunately I live in the desert, so we're doing our best, but the summer will be hard.

 

[BlueBaby]

@Geranium I hope you get thing's worked out with your girl's. Yes, it does get very hot here in the summer, and the bigger fluffier breed's with the smaller comb's seem to have the hardest time with handling it. That's why some of us here in AZ. have started going with doing the Naked Neck's. They also have less feathering on the bodies. Next week we are supposed to reach 110-f. temp.

 

[azygous]

My uncle, in the 50s, ran a poultry farm. He was in the California desert. No air conditioning, but he would run fans. He lost many chickens during the summer months. Heat and chickens can be a real challenge.

Heck, it's a challenge for humans. I spent the final seven years before retirement at a California state park on the Colorado River twenty-five miles from Yuma, AZ, and summer lasted a good nine months, temps averaging 117F from July to the end of October. I don't see how people came to my park to camp during that time. I guess they loved torture. But the cat fishing was good.