Two sick hens. One paralyzed. New chicken momma.

[Mandy378]

Hi, I’m a new chicken mama in Southern California. I adopted seven hens and one rooster. The breeds are two leghorns, two Rhode Island reds, two gray Australords and two black Australorps. One of the gray Australorp females I have been worried about for weeks. She has been slower than the rest, not joining them on the roosting bar, will sleep in a corner by herself, tail down much of the time and looked puffy. I have been watching her and keeping an eye on her. I tried massaging her crop to see if she had an impacted crop and followed an online video and she did not throw up. She was also eating and drinking and pooping regularly. One of the white leghorn females has always been thinner than the rest, but has always had no issues with eating and drinking and was always very energetic and kept up with the flock. She was always the last one to come into the coop at night. A few days ago, the white leghorn was tripping over her feet and falling over. She would try to fly onto the roosting bar which she did every night before bed and kept falling off. The next morning she tried to follow the flock out to the backyard as usual, and kept falling over to one side. She was only using one of her wings and would just lay on the ground. I put her in a separate coop to isolate her. The next day the gray AustraLori that I had been worried about for weeks started tripping over her feet. At that point, I put them together in a separate coop. I have added electrolytes, probiotics, oregano/cinnamon natural antibiotic powder and vitamins to their water. I dusted their coop and dust bath areas with diatomaceous earth powder. The white leghorn has continued to decline. She has moments of perking up and eating but mostly lays there panting. I would put frozen water bottles next to them and give them frozen peas and corn and blueberries and give them fluids through a medicine syringe. I decided yesterday to move them into my bathtub in my room. The gray one is now standing , but the white leghorn is still not doing well. I would appreciate any and all advice. Is there anything else that I can try? I also picked up a couple of different medicated pellets yesterday. The weather here in California has been very nice and has been in 60s and 70s and lightly breezy since I have brought them home. The last two days have been in the low 80s which is why I brought them inside to my air conditioned bathroom. I asked the person that I adopted these chickens from, and they said that they were vaccinated for Mareks and said they were fed a medicated feed and none of their other chickens are sick. I would appreciate any and all advice on what you think this could be and what else I can try. Thank you so much!

 

[nuthatched]

I'm sorry about that. How old are they? What is their diet? Have you ever wormed them?
Stop the extra treats like the frozen things, stop the herbs and antibiotic powder. Eating frozen things actuallywarm up a body, herbs will not help unless in the proper format and antibiotics, natural or not, shouldn't be given unless you are fairly certain theres an infection. Remove the d.e, I doesn't help pests and causes respiratory issues.

 

[Debbie292d]

Hiya again Mandy,

So sorry to hear you've got some ill chickens.

You're already doing what I would have suggested with the added probiotics and vitamins. The DE is fine, I've used it for many years, but that's only if it's food grade, and then only as a preventative once or twice a month in the coop and nesting areas. If they ever got mites, then something stronger like Permethrin powder would be needed.

For vitamins, we use Poultry Cell mostly, in their water occasionally or if one's looking a little peaked, and Rooster Booster granules mixed in their feed.

If you give them scratch/treats, don't give very much of that as it lacks the nutrients they need that are in their feed. They should be filling up on their feed most of all.

How old are these? If they are younger than 4-5 months, they should still be on their grower/starter crumbles. If they started laying, then a good layer crumble or pellets, or all-flock is fine too but you'd have to put a dish of oyster shell out for them, separate from their feeder.

The one with leg issues, get her to take a Vit E of yours, approx 400 iu, then follow up with a little scrambled egg to aid absorption of the E. A 1/4 of a vitamin B-complex would probably help as well. Both of these you could give her for a couple of weeks and hopefully should see improvement in a few days.

I hope you see improvements soon! Good luck!

 

[Mandy378]

Thank you! They are almost 18 months. None of them have started laying eggs yet. And I will check the vitamins that I have and see if they contain E and B vitamins and at what strength. I did see that as a separate supplement at the feed store, I would be happy to try that. I will try Giving them eggs. The frozen peas, corn, and blueberries, that I give them don’t stay frozen very long once I take them outside. It has been getting warmer here so I wanted them to have a cool treat. But they mostly have layer pellets, and a scratch feed and soldier fly larvae dried worms. I let them roam around the backyard during the day, and they peck and scratch for bugs. Is there an over-the-counter product that would deworm them? I don’t know of a vet around here that specializes in poultry. The DE is food grade and I sprinkled it around their coop and where they take dust baths. I’ve only done that one time. I have had these chickens for just over a month. Thank you for the advice.

 

[Mandy378]

Oh my gosh! I just took both sick chickens out to give them an Epson salt bath. The one that is doing the worst just had tons of worms come off of her rear end as I was washing poop off. I’m going to attach a picture. I’ve never seen these kinds of worms… What kind are these and what can I do about it? Is there anything that I can buy over-the-counter to treat worms? I don’t know of any poultry vets around here.

 

[Debbie292d]

Oh my gosh! I just took both sick chickens out to give them an Epson salt bath. The one that is doing the worst just had tons of worms come off of her rear end as I was washing poop off. I’m going to attach a picture. I’ve never seen these kinds of worms… What kind are these and what can I do about it? Is there anything that I can buy over-the-counter to treat worms? I don’t know of any poultry vets around here.

If it's really worms, most here use Safeguard. Dosage: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/help-asap—-safeguard-dosage.1613218/post-27544795

Those look like maggots to me, especially that first photo. I would check them out closer to see where those are coming from. If you find out that's what it is, you'll have to soak several times a day and try pick those off her. Cover with Neosporin without pain killer.