Silkie spitting up clear, runny substance when picked up!

[BirdNut]

My Buff Silkie hen seems to be slowly growing thin, because the bone on her abdomen (name?) has been especially prominent lately, and today, I gently picked her up and she spat up a clear, very runny substance. She spat up quite a lot of it. I'm extremely worried about her now. Is this an illness? Is it heat related? Please help!

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

If I had to take a guess (which unfortunately I do), I would think its heat related. My birds have been drinking a ton of water because its been so hot, I picked one of my Cochins up the other day and she dribbled some water. As for her being thin, I dunno. Is she housed with standard sized birds? If so, being a docile silkie and a bantem, she may be getting bullied away from the food. Good luck- hope your puff baby is better soon!

 

[critterranch]

yes it is water. with the heat they drink extra and when you pick them up it can come back up if you squeeze their crop a little

 

[BirdNut]

Thank you both so much for the help.

I'm leaning more toward the heat-related problem. I lost an EE to a long bout of 105-110 degree weather, and have since then been watching my birds like a hawk for symptoms of heat exhaustion. I did notice that Goldie has been drinking a lot of water lately, so it makes sense that a little bit would come out of her crop when I pick her up.

As far as being thin, she is not being penned up with LF birds. She is in her very own coop. She used to share it with the LF EE (Amber) until Amber passed on, but Amber passed about a month ago, and I would expect Goldie to have resolved any sort of under-eating issues by now. That bone on her abdomen has always been prominent, it just seemed especially so when I held her today. Perhaps it was the way I was holding her that made me feel it so much more