Thin Molting Hen with Squishy Crop

[qwigoqwaga]

We just had our first snow of the winter and our welsummer, Penny, is still in the middle of molting. Our other chickens have almost entirely grown in their new feathers, but hers are still scraggly. She can't even fly up to roost at night (she'll try but just crash her face or neck into the bar) so she's been sleeping in the nesting box. I managed to grab her today and I felt on either side of her keel and it felt entirely flat, which felt alarming. She really just felt like a keel bone and a crop with wings. I felt one of our other hens for comparison and while there wasn't much on either side of the keel, there was something. I noticed a few days ago Penny's crop was a bit large and malleable/doughy. For a couple days after that, it was smaller but not empty in the mornings (I don't know about today; I'm not the one to let them out usually). I also saw her do a green, runny poop and saw another poop like it in the run.

Any ideas on what could be going on here or what I could do to help her?

 

[Kevin_87]

She needs to be wormed and fed some high protein feed. I also feed canned tuna in water, not oil. They love it and it helps with a difficult molt. If you have a tractor supply near you the feed I use is called feather fixer. If you can't find that, meat bird finishing food will work.

 

[qwigoqwaga]

Ok, we just bought some Feather Fixer and put it out there for them and I put apple cider vinegar in their water. Her crop was small and hard this morning and she's still otherwise behaving normally. Hopefully the extra protein will help her finish molting so she can stay warm.