applepie_chicken
Chirping
- Sep 30, 2022
- 30
- 63
- 71
I am sorry that we waited so long to create a post on this; we have spent many 10's of hours researching this on our own and scouring these forums trying to sift through the noise and navigating on our own.
Chickens involved so far:
BB – the patient hen
AP – The other hen that just started showing symptoms of being lethargic and unusual poop
The current situation is BB is not drinking water on her own anymore, but still has energy for foraging (I carefully watch her to make sure she is only in the moist dirt away from plants and try to stop her from eating plants and grass ( although occasionally she might grab a small bite of a leaf or grass bit before we stop her ). I am letting her eat the bugs grubs and worms she finds. She currently has a full hard crop, but has had a crop in a waterballoon state and even achieved what seemed like a mostly empty crop a few days ago (~feb4). I will answer the questions and then try to create a history timeline as best as I can recall.
1) What type of bird , age and weight (does the chicken seem or feel lighter or thinner than the others.)
Blue Australorp hen around 3.5 years old. Her normal weight is about 6 lbs but right now she feels less than 4 lbs right now. We haven’t weighed her but just feels looks like she is getting very light and small.
2) What is the behavior, exactly.
We first noticed that she was lethargic when it was cold, but when it was warm she would get her energy back. For the past 2 weeks she has been not eating on her own and very picky about what she will eat with us offering different favorite foods. More on this in the timeline since this picky eating has evolved. She has been doing some drinking of water on her own and when offered sometimes will drink but currently is very apprehensive to drink from us.
Mar 8th she finally drank some water again, we were walking BB at same time as rest of our flock, and when offering her water(with probiotic electrolyte mix) another chicken ran up and started drinking the water and BB in the herd mentality started drinking it, and continued to drink it after the other chickens left. Chicken psychiatry at play here for sure!
3) How long has the bird been exhibiting symptoms?
This timeline might go back to roughly February 12th first noticing the lethargy, but I am a bit hazy on exact first noticing timing here. We isolated her to garage with a warming plate to protect her from the extreme cold Feb 19th. I will provide timeline and a lot more details after answering these questions.
4) Are other birds exhibiting the same symptoms?
Until May 7th:
Not the crop bound or lethargy, though our other hens always have a full crop when we check in middle of day, I need to check them in morning before eating to see if others have same issue. Some hens would occasionally have runny poops and messy but feathers. We have already responded to this by worming the entire flock patient on Feb 23rd and rest on Feb 24th.
Update:
May 7th Other chicken AP starting to look lethargic
May 8th Other chicken AP still lethargic and found poop from AP pictured
Note: AP does not have a full crop like BB, and until May 7th was a relatively fat, meaty, and seemingly healthy chicken. At her normal energy levels until then. She is still meaty and fat. (I do not believe she is obese).
5) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma?
No, she also will jump up to perch on side of her garage cage when we open it before we can get her. She still has balance, and can flap wings, she also will forage on her own(during chaperoned foraging sessions.) She is sensitive about us touching her crop and will want to wiggle stand up during a crop massage. When crop is hard doesn’t mind us touching it.
6) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation.
There is some chicken pecking order drama which is more with the australorps than our orpingtons, but there is a pecking order hierarchy triangle of chickens who pick on each other after we introduced a rescue chicken to the flock about a year ago. BB is the lowest in the pecking order of the australorps which are all below the orpingtons, the rescue chicken is below the BB, but above one of the chickens that will occasionally pick on BB. This exposes BB some amount of stress.
We have changed/rotated foods from (New Country Organics – Soy Free Corn Free Grain) to (Kalmbach 17% layer pellets) but we still give them some of the New Country organics at same time as we phase out due to higher price and also they are selectively eating the new country organics for the part they like. We understand food changes can cause issues for chickens as well.
7) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all.
Up until about Mar 4th drinking water on her own. When we first isolated her Feb 19th, she had little appetite, she was not eating the pellet food at all, but would eat fish, coconut oil bits(only from hand), would pick at chopped up hard-boiled egg and munch on raw egg(when held in container in hand). Next day, no appetite for anything, but will still drink water. Crop switched from hard pingpongball size, to a waterballon. We started letting her forage out of desperation and she would eat clay bits from dirt and whatever small worms/grubs she could find which was a surprisingly decent amount.
Crop felt empty around March 3rd, and we tried offering her all the different food types before but she was not interested. Anything other than foraging for dirt and grubs worms ect. She would eat mixture of fermented chicken food, with some crumble chicken food mixed in. We would sprinkle chickweed leaves in to entice her which would get her to eat the other stuff by accident, but she would occasionally eat the crumble or the soft lentil bits.
March 4th crop hard and full again and not drinking water
March 8th finally drank water again due to seeing other chicken drinking the water.
8) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc.
Poop started out as small and mostly liquid, with some brown bits and either white or yellow stuff in it see pictures of poop in the picture sections. Some poop had yellow areas. After the phase of not eating anything but earthworms while crop was a waterballon, she was pooping really runny with splatter pattern.
We weren’t taking too many pictures of the poop early on because we weren’t that worried about BB at the time. First poop related picture was on Feb 22nd not actual poop but an oddity.
Feb22 found solid lima bean sized clump of hard food material (smelled fishy, but we were feeding her fish the day before) in hospital. I broke it to find it was same material on inside. It was squishy but hard, rubbery till it broke abruptly
Feb 28th Poop
Mar 1st poop
Mar 1st foraging poop the green part of the poop is more of a splattered bits instead of the solids string of dark green
Mar 3rd Poop
Mar 4th poop
Mar 8th poop picture Morning in Hospital Coop
Mar 8th BB poop during afternoon forage
9) What has been the treatment you have administered so far?
See timeline for better detail on when and what.
Cropbound Pill (21st 24th 28th)
Safeguard (23rd,Mar 5th)
Dose – small pea size every 10 day
Monistat (23rd-28th)
Dose – ¼ suppository 2x daily
Bactrim (3rd-7th)
Various times/attempts often she rather drink the regular water
10 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet?
We intend to treat the bird completely ourselves as we did not intend to spend a fortune on vet bills with our chickens.
11) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help.
12) Describe the housing/bedding in use
We are using dominion hemp bedding
Closeup of Hemp Bedding
Timeline:
Feb 19th Isolate to garage
Feb 20th Ate sardines, hard boiled egg bits, and raw egg
Feb 21st Cropbound Pill
Feb 22nd Fecal Test
Feb 23rd Dewormer and start Monistat
Feb 24th Cropbound Pill
Feb 28th Cropbound pill(still waterballoon) – Start letting her forage outside
Mar 2nd Last day of Monistat
Mar 3rd Start Bactrim Crop Felt Empty that afternoon
Mar 4th Fed wet Crumbles with Fermented Grain mix she would only eat when sprinkles with fresh chickweed leaves and when thrown on ground around foraging. Also ate some sardine fish bits very small amount.
Mar 5th Dewormer also crop filled with hard food not interested in drinking water anymore
Mar 7th Last day of Backtrim crop still filled with hard food still not drinking
Mar 8th Crop still filled and hard, drank some water during her walk with rest of flock (we carefully make sure no one will get a chance to pick on her, but other chickens drinking her water got her thirsty). Can feel crop less hard and a bit of water can be felt in crop.
Throughout timeline lightly pecked or completely ignored various foods including fish bits, wet crumble, solid coconut oil, raw egg, and hard boiled egg bits. Foods listed as ate were given after attempting the hard boiled egg and wet crumbles with no interest shown.
Food
Kalmbach 17% layer pellets – current feed all chickens
Kalmbach 17% layer crumbles – current feed patient - (offered both dry and wet)
New Country Organics – Soy Free Corn Free Grain – Used for the Fermented mix
Feb 23 – Picture of Hospital – Grit, Egg bits, Wet Crumble Food, Nutridrench Water
Feb 23rd microscope fecal float pictures (no centrifuge available, we followed the procedure and solution in another Backyard chickens article)
Some of the circles are probably just bubbles, but not sure how to tell if just trash or things that can be identified as dangerous.
Mar 1st foraging area not as fast or aggressive as other chickens but very methodical and hard at work digging with beak
FEB 14th - BB before we began this process
Chickens involved so far:
BB – the patient hen
AP – The other hen that just started showing symptoms of being lethargic and unusual poop
The current situation is BB is not drinking water on her own anymore, but still has energy for foraging (I carefully watch her to make sure she is only in the moist dirt away from plants and try to stop her from eating plants and grass ( although occasionally she might grab a small bite of a leaf or grass bit before we stop her ). I am letting her eat the bugs grubs and worms she finds. She currently has a full hard crop, but has had a crop in a waterballoon state and even achieved what seemed like a mostly empty crop a few days ago (~feb4). I will answer the questions and then try to create a history timeline as best as I can recall.
1) What type of bird , age and weight (does the chicken seem or feel lighter or thinner than the others.)
Blue Australorp hen around 3.5 years old. Her normal weight is about 6 lbs but right now she feels less than 4 lbs right now. We haven’t weighed her but just feels looks like she is getting very light and small.
2) What is the behavior, exactly.
We first noticed that she was lethargic when it was cold, but when it was warm she would get her energy back. For the past 2 weeks she has been not eating on her own and very picky about what she will eat with us offering different favorite foods. More on this in the timeline since this picky eating has evolved. She has been doing some drinking of water on her own and when offered sometimes will drink but currently is very apprehensive to drink from us.
Mar 8th she finally drank some water again, we were walking BB at same time as rest of our flock, and when offering her water(with probiotic electrolyte mix) another chicken ran up and started drinking the water and BB in the herd mentality started drinking it, and continued to drink it after the other chickens left. Chicken psychiatry at play here for sure!
3) How long has the bird been exhibiting symptoms?
This timeline might go back to roughly February 12th first noticing the lethargy, but I am a bit hazy on exact first noticing timing here. We isolated her to garage with a warming plate to protect her from the extreme cold Feb 19th. I will provide timeline and a lot more details after answering these questions.
4) Are other birds exhibiting the same symptoms?
Until May 7th:
Not the crop bound or lethargy, though our other hens always have a full crop when we check in middle of day, I need to check them in morning before eating to see if others have same issue. Some hens would occasionally have runny poops and messy but feathers. We have already responded to this by worming the entire flock patient on Feb 23rd and rest on Feb 24th.
Update:
May 7th Other chicken AP starting to look lethargic
May 8th Other chicken AP still lethargic and found poop from AP pictured
Note: AP does not have a full crop like BB, and until May 7th was a relatively fat, meaty, and seemingly healthy chicken. At her normal energy levels until then. She is still meaty and fat. (I do not believe she is obese).
5) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma?
No, she also will jump up to perch on side of her garage cage when we open it before we can get her. She still has balance, and can flap wings, she also will forage on her own(during chaperoned foraging sessions.) She is sensitive about us touching her crop and will want to wiggle stand up during a crop massage. When crop is hard doesn’t mind us touching it.
6) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation.
There is some chicken pecking order drama which is more with the australorps than our orpingtons, but there is a pecking order hierarchy triangle of chickens who pick on each other after we introduced a rescue chicken to the flock about a year ago. BB is the lowest in the pecking order of the australorps which are all below the orpingtons, the rescue chicken is below the BB, but above one of the chickens that will occasionally pick on BB. This exposes BB some amount of stress.
We have changed/rotated foods from (New Country Organics – Soy Free Corn Free Grain) to (Kalmbach 17% layer pellets) but we still give them some of the New Country organics at same time as we phase out due to higher price and also they are selectively eating the new country organics for the part they like. We understand food changes can cause issues for chickens as well.
7) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all.
Up until about Mar 4th drinking water on her own. When we first isolated her Feb 19th, she had little appetite, she was not eating the pellet food at all, but would eat fish, coconut oil bits(only from hand), would pick at chopped up hard-boiled egg and munch on raw egg(when held in container in hand). Next day, no appetite for anything, but will still drink water. Crop switched from hard pingpongball size, to a waterballon. We started letting her forage out of desperation and she would eat clay bits from dirt and whatever small worms/grubs she could find which was a surprisingly decent amount.
Crop felt empty around March 3rd, and we tried offering her all the different food types before but she was not interested. Anything other than foraging for dirt and grubs worms ect. She would eat mixture of fermented chicken food, with some crumble chicken food mixed in. We would sprinkle chickweed leaves in to entice her which would get her to eat the other stuff by accident, but she would occasionally eat the crumble or the soft lentil bits.
March 4th crop hard and full again and not drinking water
March 8th finally drank water again due to seeing other chicken drinking the water.
8) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc.
Poop started out as small and mostly liquid, with some brown bits and either white or yellow stuff in it see pictures of poop in the picture sections. Some poop had yellow areas. After the phase of not eating anything but earthworms while crop was a waterballon, she was pooping really runny with splatter pattern.
We weren’t taking too many pictures of the poop early on because we weren’t that worried about BB at the time. First poop related picture was on Feb 22nd not actual poop but an oddity.
Feb22 found solid lima bean sized clump of hard food material (smelled fishy, but we were feeding her fish the day before) in hospital. I broke it to find it was same material on inside. It was squishy but hard, rubbery till it broke abruptly
Feb 28th Poop
Mar 1st poop
Mar 1st foraging poop the green part of the poop is more of a splattered bits instead of the solids string of dark green
Mar 3rd Poop
Mar 4th poop
Mar 8th poop picture Morning in Hospital Coop
Mar 8th BB poop during afternoon forage
9) What has been the treatment you have administered so far?
See timeline for better detail on when and what.
Cropbound Pill (21st 24th 28th)
Safeguard (23rd,Mar 5th)
Dose – small pea size every 10 day
Monistat (23rd-28th)
Dose – ¼ suppository 2x daily
Bactrim (3rd-7th)
Various times/attempts often she rather drink the regular water
10 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet?
We intend to treat the bird completely ourselves as we did not intend to spend a fortune on vet bills with our chickens.
11) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help.
12) Describe the housing/bedding in use
We are using dominion hemp bedding
Closeup of Hemp Bedding
Timeline:
Feb 19th Isolate to garage
Feb 20th Ate sardines, hard boiled egg bits, and raw egg
Feb 21st Cropbound Pill
Feb 22nd Fecal Test
Feb 23rd Dewormer and start Monistat
Feb 24th Cropbound Pill
Feb 28th Cropbound pill(still waterballoon) – Start letting her forage outside
Mar 2nd Last day of Monistat
Mar 3rd Start Bactrim Crop Felt Empty that afternoon
Mar 4th Fed wet Crumbles with Fermented Grain mix she would only eat when sprinkles with fresh chickweed leaves and when thrown on ground around foraging. Also ate some sardine fish bits very small amount.
Mar 5th Dewormer also crop filled with hard food not interested in drinking water anymore
Mar 7th Last day of Backtrim crop still filled with hard food still not drinking
Mar 8th Crop still filled and hard, drank some water during her walk with rest of flock (we carefully make sure no one will get a chance to pick on her, but other chickens drinking her water got her thirsty). Can feel crop less hard and a bit of water can be felt in crop.
Throughout timeline lightly pecked or completely ignored various foods including fish bits, wet crumble, solid coconut oil, raw egg, and hard boiled egg bits. Foods listed as ate were given after attempting the hard boiled egg and wet crumbles with no interest shown.
Food
Kalmbach 17% layer pellets – current feed all chickens
Kalmbach 17% layer crumbles – current feed patient - (offered both dry and wet)
New Country Organics – Soy Free Corn Free Grain – Used for the Fermented mix
Feb 23 – Picture of Hospital – Grit, Egg bits, Wet Crumble Food, Nutridrench Water
Feb 23rd microscope fecal float pictures (no centrifuge available, we followed the procedure and solution in another Backyard chickens article)
Some of the circles are probably just bubbles, but not sure how to tell if just trash or things that can be identified as dangerous.
Mar 1st foraging area not as fast or aggressive as other chickens but very methodical and hard at work digging with beak
FEB 14th - BB before we began this process
