Stands like a penguin, not eggbound....what can it be? Help?

[Mama Kay W]

Thank you Kathy, I have read this breed is suppose to be only 7.5 pounds, and Molly is smaller than my other New Hampshire Red, haven't weighed her but I have a feeling she is more like 12 at least and she is doing great.

I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to try to put her back in with the others? She seems pretty lonely and just stands in the corner except to come & eat which she is eating again

 

[hildar]

granny hatchet: I stuck her with the needle & syringe since in a few spots did feel a little squishy and when I posted before about Molly some had suggested it could be "ascites" and I did get 15ml of yellowish fluid from her, but that was it. The white you see is she has had a little bit of diarrhea (runny poop) a few times and it came from that. She has been wormed.

Eggcessive: Thank you, I do have a feeling it could be either internal laying or cancer, I'm leaning more toward cancer. The strange thing about her is that she is eating normally and a lot, she loves mil worms (of course) and I did give her some yogurt with a bit of some tums (I've read it's good for the calcium) and she ate a bit of that.
The antibiotics did help that I gave her for the week since her comb was a blueish/purple and after the week it is now a normal pink.

Sounds to me more like internal hatching. I had one pass away with it finally. She kept going for close to a year and one day I caught her trying to hatch eggs, we couldn't get her to stop doing it no matter what we did. She would steal eggs and roll them into a corner and sit on them. She was a red ranger and even broke multiple eggs she was so heavy and awkward. Finally she would give up for a few hours and then she would go back to the nest and sit again. Stealing more eggs to replace the ones that broke. One day one of them started hatching and out came a baby, she up and left the nest leaving the baby there. When I realized what she had done, I then went and got the baby only to find out it was deformed due to all the on again off again sitting. After the baby passed she sat on the empty spot for 2 days and passed away. I think she was telling us she was going, and she wanted to do something good by trying to sit. But they can last and last with that. If yours starts passing what I called cooked egg in their poop that is internal hatching.

 

[Mama Kay W]

Well, she seems to be doing the same still after 1 1/2 weeks. I took her out for a supervised visit to the enclosed run with her flock mates. It didn't go to well, one of the other hens jumped up at her and did scratch her face, I quickly separated them (she did try to fight back) and closed the mean hen inside the coop and let Molly wonder around the run with the other 2 which followed her around but that was it.
She seemed to really enjoy being outside in the run, but I did notice that she was using her wings a bit for balance. She still moves a bit slow and stands like a penguin but she is still eating a lot and pecking around.
I brought her back inside and she seems to want to go back out.

My question is should I just try to reintroduce her to the flock and see how she does? If it is egg yoke peritonitis/ internally laying or cancer, I know there is nothing I can do, but she is eating and otherwise acting normal.

 

[hildar]

Well, she seems to be doing the same still after 1 1/2 weeks. I took her out for a supervised visit to the enclosed run with her flock mates. It didn't go to well, one of the other hens jumped up at her and did scratch her face, I quickly separated them (she did try to fight back) and closed the mean hen inside the coop and let Molly wonder around the run with the other 2 which followed her around but that was it.
She seemed to really enjoy being outside in the run, but I did notice that she was using her wings a bit for balance. She still moves a bit slow and stands like a penguin but she is still eating a lot and pecking around.
I brought her back inside and she seems to want to go back out.

My question is should I just try to reintroduce her to the flock and see how she does? If it is egg yoke peritonitis/ internally laying or cancer, I know there is nothing I can do, but she is eating and otherwise acting normal.

Mine would have days when she acted normal, then all of a sudden she would just go and lay down someplace and stay in that one spot most of the day. I actually would go and get her sometimes to head back to the coop at night time. However only near the very end of it did she get to the really sickly looking hen. She lost about 5 pounds in her last month of life. And her comb started drooping, and even got very white looking.

 

[Mama Kay W]

Hildar: Sorry for your loss. Do you know how long she was ill before she passed?

I was out with the other hens (got another egg from my "overweight" hen) and I felt her belly and it feels bigger than Molly's. Could be just the extra weight though, she's about 14 pounds

But it reminded me about 2 weeks ago before I saw Molly standing around like a penguin I saw her walking funny, one leg seemed to swing out kinda weird when she walked, she couldn't seem to get up on the nesting box later that evening, then a day or two later is when I saw her sitting on her tail feathers. The large hens seem to have a bit of a hard landing when they jump off, just trying to think of if it could be something else wrong with her.

 

[fiddlebanshee]

WHat you are describing is exactly the thought process I went through with my New Hampshire Red. I thought she had pulled a muscle, or broken a leg. It was because the internal egg mass was pressing against her spine and her nerves (like sciatica in humans). I still think that your hen probably was internally laying for quite a while. I would probably keep her in a confined area in the coop where the others cannot get to her (because she will be assaulted) but she can still see and hear them. Give her whatever treats she will take. Mine was so weak towards the end that I tried feeding her with a syringe or a dropper. In the end the most humane thing to do was to euthanize her.

If you search this forum for "internal layer" my posts with pictures of the mass she had inside her will probably pop up. It was about a year ago, I think.

 

[hildar]

Hildar: Sorry for your loss. Do you know how long she was ill before she passed?

I was out with the other hens (got another egg from my "overweight" hen) and I felt her belly and it feels bigger than Molly's. Could be just the extra weight though, she's about 14 pounds

But it reminded me about 2 weeks ago before I saw Molly standing around like a penguin I saw her walking funny, one leg seemed to swing out kinda weird when she walked, she couldn't seem to get up on the nesting box later that evening, then a day or two later is when I saw her sitting on her tail feathers. The large hens seem to have a bit of a hard landing when they jump off, just trying to think of if it could be something else wrong with her.

Lemon was a red ranger. So her weight was really high. However I have been told that if a hen ever gets sick the chances of getting internal hatching go up a lot. Lemon got sick about 3 months before she stopped laying eggs. For about 3 months off and on we would get an egg about once a week then all of a sudden it stopped and we started seeing poops with cooked looking egg in it. Then she started back to laying again for a few more months we started getting 1 egg every 3 to 4 days from her. All in all she lasted about 18 months with the internal hatching. But she had good days and bad days.

My chickens land on top of each other all the time, but I have not had any as of yet get hurt from it.

 

[Granny Hatchet]

so if it was pressing on nerves does that mean she was probably in pain? if you have to go through that again what would you do different?

 

[fiddlebanshee]

Yes, in the end she was very visibly in pain and distress. I couldn't let that continue.

I am not sure if I would have done anything different. I would perhaps have euthanized a week or two earlier as the suffering in those last two weeks was not necessary. By then I had figured out what the problem was and I just didn't want to let go. But that was selfish. The last day she only wanted to hide in a dark place. I had carried her outside in the woods and was sitting beside her on a rock, she crawled under the rock and wouldn't come out. Then I knew i had to do it that day. I euthanized her myself, and then did a necropsy. Pics of that are in the post-mortem post I made on this forum. My hunch is that she would have probably died very soon if I hadn't euthanized her, maybe even that night.

 

[Granny Hatchet]

Yes, in the end she was very visibly in pain and distress. I couldn't let that continue.

I am not sure if I would have done anything different. I would perhaps have euthanized a week or two earlier as the suffering in those last two weeks was not necessary. By then I had figured out what the problem was and I just didn't want to let go. But that was selfish. The last day she only wanted to hide in a dark place. I had carried her outside in the woods and was sitting beside her on a rock, she crawled under the rock and wouldn't come out. Then I knew i had to do it that day. I euthanized her myself, and then did a necropsy. Pics of that are in the post-mortem post I made on this forum. My hunch is that she would have probably died very soon if I hadn't euthanized her, maybe even that night.