She now will not go in the coop with her sisters in the evening but goes into the garage and lays down in a corner. I bring her in the houseand put her on an elevated box with a rug so she is warm and quiet. I have been giving her 1/2 of a 80 mg aspirin in the morning and evening wrapped in some damp white bread which is about the only thing she will eat . She is incredibly weak and I went to 2 vets looking for some anti-biotic but they were not chicken vets and seemed indifferent and curious why I would care about a "low value farm animal" Guess I am silly but I got her when she was either 2 or 3 years old and had her for 5 years so you get attached to them like people do to dogs and cats. I think she has some sort of cancer/infection inside, her belly is pretty full and her poo is a runny yellow looking ,mess that sticks to her rear and has an infectious strong odor. I clean it every once in a while but she does not like it so trying to not traumitize her too much. I am just worried she is in pain, even though she is very quiet and the one vet wouldn't give any antibiotic without a $50 office visit. I just don't see the sense in throwing away $50 just to have the vet tell me she is old, dying and offer his services for another $35 to put her down. Is there any medicine I can buy over the counter that is an anti-biotic? I went to a big local farm supply store but they didn't have medicine like that for chickens.Maybe some human medicine from Walgreens for fighting infections can be bought without a prescription? I doubt if she will last 3 more days but want her to die peacefully without pain if possible. Thanks.
Does her belly seem very firm? If you aren't sure you can feel the bellies of any other hens you have, to compare. She may have egg yolk peritonitis, which fits with the symptoms you are describing, what breed is she? If she does have egg yolk peritonitis, options are limited. Depending on how and where in her body cavity the yolks and buildup is happening, sometimes relief can be given from draining it, but should only be attempted by someone that is experienced because there is a high risk of puncturing an organ. Surgery can be preformed by an experienced vet. You can search the forum for "egg yolk peritonitis" and learn some of your options, but a lot of them require veterinary assistance. Where do you live? Perhaps we can find an avian vet near you. It's really up to you how much you want and can do for her, and don't feel guilty if you cannot do much. Here is an asprin dosage for poultry: http://msucares.com/poultry/diseases/solutions.html I would cautiously advise against giving any sort of antibiotic without knowing more about what is going on with her. Yellow urates in birds can also be a sign of major organ failure (liver).
She definitely has an illness there. Sucks to hear about these traumatizing situations. The runny poops and bad odor are symptoms of a few problems. I am checking my little chicken bible here for the meds if you can find them at the vets or Walgreens as you mention. You can try asking for a vaccine called Coryza-Vac the other you may want to try you can do yourself if you don't like needles...Sulfadimethoxine. This can be put into the water supply and it good for all the birds to have some. It sounds like a usual chicken infection, the main reasons this happens is introducing new birds to an all ready established flock, dirty watering dishes and feed dishes, fecal eating, etc. It can be devastating and fair to say messy when a whole flock gets infected by these communicable diseases. I hope this helps out. I would recommend keeping her separated from the rest until results happen. Then treat her and all the birds to some electrolytes mixed in the water for a day.... Best of luck Steve(Bunky)
Sonja is a Rhode Island Red and is part of the original flock. If I was wealthy, I would have taken her to a vet 10 days ago when she was getting sick. Last year I spent $186 for one of my chickens at the Vet who thought she needed shots to induce egg laying. He suggested puting her down but i couldn't , she was a special lap chicken and she lasted another 2 months. I think the problem is as mentioned above, egg yok peritonitus. She would not eat all her moist bread this morning and i need to travel out of state tomorrow and without her being in the warm house at night i am sure she will pass tomorrow. She is close to 8 years old so at least she had a fairly long life for an egg laying chicken. She does have a fairly full belly, so i am thinking it is the internal egg laying problem. i guess this is quite common for the chickens bred to be heavy egg layers. I am going to Winco and get a variety of seeds to see if she will eat them. She still likes the shelled sunflower seeds..
