Sleepy Chicken

[SanibelLover]

I have a chicken who is about 3 and a half months old, 1/2 Black Giant, 1/2 Americauna, and yesterday it started acting weird, standing by itself, head tucked. Last night we had a hard time getting it up on the roost, and my husband was finally able to get it into a nest. It was still in the nest at 10L30 this morning, and when I went out at 11:30, it was out of the nest, but just standing with it's head tucked, feathers kind of fluffed up. I decided to put it in a cage by itself, and went inside to mix some warm water with vitamins and antibiotics for it. When I came out, it had moved to the back of the coop, but was still standing the same. It was very easy to move, and is still standing in it's new cage the same way. Up until yesterday, this was a perfectly healthy appeary chicken. Any ideas?

 

[emzee]

Sounds like cocci to me. Have you been giving it medicated feed? I usually feed my chicks medicated feed up until they're 4 months old. I would also put Sulmet in its water.

 

[Redfarrah]

SanibellLover,
Watch your chicken close this is exactly how mine was acting before it died.
When i moved mine to isolation it just wanted to lay down, not eat or drink.
Make sure it's getting medicated CHICK feed, not layer crumble....and plenty of water.
keep us informed.

 

[SanibelLover]

emzee, they had medicated feed up until about 3 weeks ago, when they moved in with the other chickens, and have been eating laying pellets and cracked corn/scratch. We had a barred rock that we had to cull about a month and a half ago. She was beautiful and healthy (about 4 months old), and then started acting like her hip was bothering her. Her leg would suddenly go out on her. We thought one of the other chickens had jumped on her, and moved her to a separate cage. She seemed to get better after several days, so we moved her back, then she started acting that like again, so we separated her again. She just went downhill from there, and got to the point where she couldn't seem to support her weight, and just seemed miserable. We decided that the most humane thing to do was to put her down. Other than than, all of our chickens have been very healthy as are our guineas (we have 36) - once we get them past their stage where they are susceptible to the cold and dampness. With them, we've learned to spot when they're starting to get sick, and start giving them shots of antibiotics immediately.

 

[SanibelLover]

Would it help to give her antibiotic shots? This little chicken is special to me. Early in the fall, we hatched 8 chickens from our own eggs, one chick died, and the others were all doing great until this. Nevada was always my favorite. She was all light silver, and has recently started to get some gold on her.