Urgent: strong chemical smell from vomit & poop

[DonyaQuick]

She definitely likes it better outside so I'm giving her a try in the tractor-like thing I used to qt and introduce my rooster a couple months back. She walks around and pecks at least when she's in there which is better than just sitting and looking miserable indoors. She has multiple food options in there if she wants them. Water has hydrohen in it.

 

[DonyaQuick]

She has stopped showing interest in foraging. After drinking a bit of the hydrohen water she seems to prefer vinegar water but she won't drink enough outside. It's quite warm today and the other hens are drinking more because of that, so I got worried and brought her inside for a bit to get her to drink. I got her to drink more but not eat. I put her back out with the others since she seems to want to be in the enclosure. She is at least 1/2lb underweight, maybe more since it's been a while since I've weighed her. A lot of the time she just wants to stand in one place and close her eyes. At this point I don't know if I'm even making a difference or if I should just be bracing for a bad end. I really thought she was improving yesterday but today just feels like things are going downhill no matter what I try.

 

[Kay_Sims]

How frustrating! Hard to know wether to socialize them or not when they are ill. Can only do your best

 

[Kay_Sims]

Lost one of mine last month.. still don't know what was fully wrong... egg bound came to mind at first

 

[DonyaQuick]

How frustrating! Hard to know wether to socialize them or not when they are ill. Can only do your best

I ended up bringing her back inside. Too hot out and she started being by herself again. This time I'm keeping her with me (before she risked vomiting if I moved her). I think I have to keep her in again tonight... don't want her to spend excess energy trying to stay warm when the temps drop.

Lost one of mine last month.. still don't know what was fully wrong... egg bound came to mind at first

I'm so sorry!

 

[DonyaQuick]

My hen surprised me last night and ate a good amount all of a sudden! She's still having issues dribbling liquid out of her mouth if she puts her head down for too long, has a little more squishy feel to the crop than should be the case, and occasionally has pretty stinky burps, so I'm definitely contending with sourcrop as part of this mess...but at least that awful chemical smell from her breath and poop is gone now. This morning she had enough energy to slowly wander around the room looking for things to peck at so I'm letting her have some more foraging time outside near her flock. I have to think fresh air and being near them must be good for her even if it's in small sessions. I'll bring her in again when it starts to get hot.

 

[DonyaQuick]

So far my hen has been better today I think. She has eaten and drunk more readily at regular intervals throughout the day, although she is off feed mash - really doesn't want it even when she's clearly hungry and looking for something to eat. Instead she wants only two things: very soft vegetables like the inner bits of cucumber and baby lettuce leaves, and suet-like treats that are soft and high fat. It's a weird combination but she was so weak yesterday that I'm basically happy for her to just eat anything for a while and will worry about balancing nutrients later. I think she needs energy first whether it's from fats or otherwise. I also read that micronazole nitrate cream can be given orally safely to chickens to combat sour crop more efficiently than the vinegar method. I have a tube of that from an incident of vent gleet in a different chicken, so I gave it a go with this one. Hopefully she continues improving.

 

[DonyaQuick]

She died today. Her name was Cuddles. She largely lost the use of her legs overnight. She held on long enough for me to hold her for a while and then passed in my arms.

The last time something hit me this hard is when the family dog had to be put down when I was 10. First time I have needed to bury something other than a pet fish. I sat with her and gave her hugs every single day of her life even though it was shorter than I wanted it to be.

Retrospectively, I unfortunately now realize there may have been some signs of a deeper problem that I missed. I have a backlog of eggs but none are hers even though she would sit in the nest box at times. Her eggs looked very similar to another hen's although with close inspection they could always be told apart. At a glance though they looked the same and glancing is all I have done for weeks. Having seen what egg binding looks like in a different hen, I'm confident that she did not have that. She was perhaps resting instead of laying. Right near the end I think I could also feel a couple of small hard lumps on/near her crop that were clearly a part of her, not something in her crop. She was my 2nd smallest, the other clearly having some bantam or dwarfism gene; Cuddles was just very slender. I wonder whether she may have had something like cancer underlying things and the mold event was just what pushed it over the edge. Still a hard pill to swallow.

I will leave this thread with a picture of my late beautiful girl from when she was still full of life. Rest peacefully where you are now Cuddles I am going to miss you so much. You were a wonderful girl and I was so lucky to have you.

 

[RoyalChick]

She died today. Her name was Cuddles. She largely lost the use of her legs overnight. She held on long enough for me to hold her for a while and then passed in my arms.

The last time something hit me this hard is when the family dog had to be put down when I was 10. First time I have needed to bury something other than a pet fish. I sat with her and gave her hugs every single day of her life even though it was shorter than I wanted it to be.

Retrospectively, I unfortunately now realize there may have been some signs of a deeper problem that I missed. I have a backlog of eggs but none are hers even though she would sit in the nest box at times. Her eggs looked very similar to another hen's although with close inspection they could always be told apart. At a glance though they looked the same and glancing is all I have done for weeks. Having seen what egg binding looks like in a different hen, I'm confident that she did not have that. She was perhaps resting instead of laying. Right near the end I think I could also feel a couple of small hard lumps on/near her crop that were clearly a part of her, not something in her crop. She was my 2nd smallest, the other clearly having some bantam or dwarfism gene; Cuddles was just very slender. I wonder whether she may have had something like cancer underlying things and the mold event was just what pushed it over the edge. Still a hard pill to swallow.

I will leave this thread with a picture of my late beautiful girl from when she was still full of life. Rest peacefully where you are now Cuddles I am going to miss you so much. You were a wonderful girl and I was so lucky to have you.

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So sorry.

 

[Kay_Sims]

So sorry to read this! She looked extremely cute and loved, you did your best, know how it feels . RIP Cuddles ❤