URGENT - Chicken with diarrhea now walks like a soldier

[MaeM]

So, I have a hen with the following symptoms, and while I'm being supported by vets, I think I also need your help on how to handle this. I don't know if I'm being pessimistic or realistic, but I'm kind of getting ready to lose her.

Eris has very watery, milky diarrhea with whole grains of food in it. Like she doesn't digest anything. I took her to the vet and she's lost a lot of weight and she has anemia. Her appetite comes and goes, as well as her energy. She's like sleepy, but still walks around and when she does it, she walks "like a soldier", lifting her feet exaggeratedly before every step. Then she rests with her head hidden in her feathers.

She also makes a noise once in a while - it kind of sounds like a sneeze. She had breathing difficulty two days ago, but that went away after the vet gave her a shot of a bronchodilator and antibiotics. She's still having the antibiotics in case she has some sort of bacteria, but...

I don't know. It feels like the respiratory symptom was unrelated, or maybe not, but the most worrying thing right now is that her poop looks like milky water, I wouldn't bet that her crop is emptying properly, and this strange way of walking looks neurological. Almost like... Marek's disease or something like that.

Please, tell me if I'm overreacting or not.

 

[2ndTink]

It's hard to say with chickens, they can be tricky to diagnose.

What feed is she on? How hot is it where you are?

Any abnormalities in her abdomen?

Can you give her some probiotics? Either poultry specific or some plain yogurt?

 

[nuthatched]

Does she get grit?

 

[MaeM]

It's hard to say with chickens, they can be tricky to diagnose.

What feed is she on? How hot is it where you are?

Any abnormalities in her abdomen?

Can you give her some probiotics? Either poultry specific or some plain yogurt?

Not in her abdomen but her crop is a bit hard. All I can feel in her abdomen is that she's skinny.

She's fed with layer feed (even though she's not laying), which she is eating by herself a little bit, but overall she's lost her appetite. She eats some grass, too, as she free roams in the backyard.

But she drinks a lot more than she eats. The weather is actually cold, about 9ºC or 49ºF.

She gets dehydrated because of her diarrhea, I hydrate her with electrolytes every 4 hours. She's not on probiotics but my vet told me to give her a syringe of Ensure, the nutrition shake for humans, because she's probably malnourished, too.

She seems to have malabsorption and now seems to be dangerously close to GI stasis. I'm really worried, but the vet can't see her until next Tuesday.