Sudden onset chicken illness???

[KCNC06]

I know I tend to be a little paranoid about my chickens...but I'm really concerned about this girl. My EE hen (Hawkface) started laying two weeks ago (1/24/10) and laid an egg a day for close to a week, until we got a snow storm on 1/29-31. Since 1/31 she hasn't laid an egg, at least not one that I've found. I didn't really think very much about it, our Seabright hen also stopped laying that day and the other two layers haven't been laying as much.

This morning Hawkface appeared to be very interested in another hen who was getting ready to lay her first egg. When I got home from work Hawkface was sitting on the other hen's nest and there were three eggs in the nest, none of them appeared to be Hawkface's though. Hers are usually blue/green and these were light brown and cream. Hawkface left the nest and I thought she went out to eat some of the food that I had put out for their afternoon snack (layer crumbles with a bit of scratch mixed in). I went back inside to work on things in the house.

About 45 minutes ago I went out to close the chicken house up for the night and noticed someone was missing, and realized pretty quickly that it was Hawkface. Normally when I go to close them up at night she's very talkative. I called for her and looked around a bit and found her laying part way under their house, she appeared to be sleeping soundly...or dead. I picked her up and she moved a little and talked a little, but seemed groggy. I flipped her over to feel her belly, but wasn't really sure what I should be feeling for, then set her down in the chicken house. She kind of staggered a bit, then scrunched down like she was going to sleep. One of the other chickens jumped down off the roost, came over and looked at Hawkface a bit, then kind of ran away from her.

I picked her back up and brought her inside and felt her belly again. I don't feel anything like what is described in symptoms of being egg bound, but I also don't really feel any "fleshy" belly either. She just feels scrawny. Like she's all feathers, skin and bones. When I had her flipped over on her back laying on my lap, she didn't move. She just laid there with her feet sticking up and her head hanging to the side. If I didn't see her breathing I would have thought she was dead.

I have her in a box with a sheet sitting on the couch beside me now, she had been sleeping now she's laying here looking around. She looks like she might be confused, but she's not trying to stand up or anything, and she's breathing a little heavy...but that might just be because she woke up in a box! Other than falling asleep under the house tonight, and not laying an egg the past week, she hasn't been acting "sick". I don't think she's left the chicken yard much lately (she and two others normally jump the gate and wander in/out throughout the day)...but it's been cold and rainy so no one's been going out much lately. Obviously being scrawny has me concerned. I'm not sure if this could have anything to do with Hawkface's current condition, but I found two dead wild birds in our yard recently. Neither bird appeared sick or injured. It looked like they had just dropped dead out of the sky mid-flight.

Of course, she's normally very relaxed and lets me pick her up and carry her around. Maybe that explains why she didn't seem to mind me manhandling her? Any ideas about what could make her appear sickly all of a sudden? And should I be concerned about her scrawny feeling belly?

 

[Sir Birdaholic]

Sounds like maybe her air passage could be partially blocked. That will make her lethargic all of a sudden .Try to get a little water down her throat, if she won't drink freely. Use an eyedropper to put some down her throat & then in a few seconds, turn her upside down to drain excess, & maybe dislodge something. I hope this works!

She may have quit laying because if she's trying to set the eggs, she's going broody.

 

[KCNC06]

She woke up about two hours ago and was talking to me and hopped out of her box. I put her back in the box and petted her a little and she went back to sleep. Then she woke up about an hour ago and was quite talkative. I tried to get her to drink some water from a dropper, but she wasn't interested. Should I actually pry her beak open to make her drink? She's sleeping in the spare bedroom in a dog crate right now. I put a nice soft old sheet on the bottom of the crate, and put a stick through the sides so she could roost if she wanted. Apparently she doesn't want to though, she's sitting on the sheet sleeping.

 

[Sir Birdaholic]

Yes, Hold her under your arm, pry her beak, put in a little water, & drain the excess in case it goes to the lung.

 

[KCNC06]

I tried getting her to drink, she wasn't having anything to do with it. Kept clamping her beak shut and pulling her head away from me. Then I noticed some poo stuck to her feathers and decided I might as well look at her backside since I had her flipped over. I thought it was probably normal poo on feathers, I don't see how they wouldn't normally have a bit of poo stuck to them since the feathers are just so thick. Anyway. I put her back down in the crate and she did a very loose poo. Like almost all water, slightly yellow water with the normal white stuff. There were also little specks of green. She pooped in the box earlier and it had little green specks in it too. The green specks look like caterpillar poo. Like little green poos that caterpillar's drop.

She still won't sit on a perch. She seems to just want to sit on the floor with her butt up in the air. At least I think her butt's in the air, maybe her rump just looks like it's up all the time. She also feels warm, like her feet/legs and comb feel warm. Maybe she feels warm because my hands tend to be cold and she's in a nice warm room. I put a tiny bit of Poultry Nutri-drench in some water in the water dish that attaches to the door of the crate. (Nutridrench oral supplement delivers vital nutrients directly to the bloodstream in minutes. (High levels of Glucose, Vitamins A, B, D, E; essential Amino Acids (methionine and lysine) trace Minerals (potassium, selenium, magnesium, manganese, iron, zinc, cobalt). Stimulates appetite. Strengthens weak newborn. Does not cause diarrhea with continued use. No nutrients lost in urine and feces. Quickly restores the immune system.) Hopefully she'll drink some of the water during the night to stay hydrated. Either way, I've told my husband that he needs to get up early so he can check on her before I do in the morning. If she's worse in the morning I don't want to be the one to see it first.

 

[spotsplus]

Definatley sounds like she's got something going on. I think bringing her in where it's warm and quiet was the best thing you can do to start with if they are off. Could she have eaten something she shouldnt' that would cause the green specks? Watery, I can see when they get sick, but green specks are unusual. I find with eggbound hens that it helps to warm a facecloth for a small bird, hand towel for a bigger one, wet it, wring it out so it's damp, microwave it so it's very warm but not burning and set them on it in a quiet place like a box or crate. Helps them pass the eggs.

Hope she's better in the am.

T

 

[KCNC06]

Well, I checked on her a few minutes ago and she doesn't seem any worse off this morning. She's still huddled up on the floor of the crate. I can't tell if she drank any of the water I left for her, and I didn't notice any more poo. Of course with how liquid it was last night it probably just soaked into the sheet.

I can't think of anything that she could have gotten into that would have made her sick. We haven't used any pesticides/herbicides since we got the chickens. There are pine trees inside the chicken yard, leftover Christmas Trees that turned into a wind block/hide out for the birds. I can't imagine that she would have eaten any of the pine needles or that they could be toxic. Here's a picture of her poo so you can see the green specks:

 

[bargain]

I'm also always overconcerned about my babies....

Here are some web sites: where you can look at comparable pooh and descriptions.

I'm thinking that if that is green from the gut, you might be dealing with Newcastles Disease.

I hope I'm wrong and that it's something else.....You might also have impacted crop if no eating or drinking....Have you checked for that?

http://fowlfacts.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=afflictiondiseaseff&action=display&thread=1579

http://fowlfacts.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=ffanswerstoquestions&action=display&thread=1093

http://www.chat.allotment.org.uk/index.php?topic=17568.0

Hope this helps and that someone will also provide some help to you and other opinions.

 

[tnchickenut]

Maybe coccidiosis... due to the droopiness and lathargy you speak of.


http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/coccidiosis.html to read more about it. I'll copy and paste the symptoms and see if it sounds right.

Outward signs of coccidiosis in chickens include droopiness and listlessness, loss of appetite, loss of yellow color in shanks, pale combs and wattles, ruffled, unthrifty feathers, huddling or acting chilled, blood or mucus in the feces, diarrhea, dehydration, and even death. Other signs include poor feed digestion, poor weight gain, and poor feed efficiency. Some symptoms can be confused with other diseases. For example, necrotic enteritis is a gut disease that also causes bloody diarrhea.




Good luck. Wish you the best.

 

[KCNC06]

We're guessing (hoping?) that it's a worm infestation. I found worms in a different chicken's poo this morning. I got some Wazine this afternoon and mixed it in with their water. Hawkface, the sickly chicken in question, wasn't all that interested in drinking on her own this afternoon. I mixed about 1/16 tsp of Duramycin and Poultry Nutra-Drench in with her Wazine water and got her to drink about a tsp of water from a dropper.

There weren't any green bits in her poop this afternoon, but there were a few very skinny stringy things in the poop. They're much thinner than the worms I saw in the other poop this morning though. Unless blood can show up green in poop, I don't think there is blood in her poop. Her legs/feet/combs and wattles all look completely normal. How would I tell if she had an impacted crop?