vomitting chicken

[samsun]

New to this thing....10 month old chicken who is is moving slow, sits in nesting box for hours, no eggs (none of our chickens have laid for 4-5 days!), has green, runny poops sticking to rear, blinks slowly, seemed to have blood shot eyes yesterday,vomitted while my little girl held her yesterday, not roosting with the other birds..... any suggestions?

 

[scratch'n'peck]

Poor hen. Green poop can mean that not much food is going through her digestive system. You may want to separate her out and put her in a place like the garage where you can monitor her symptoms. I am going to venture a guess that it might be an impacted or sour crop because she "vomited." Does her crop feel big even though she is not eating? Here is a link to info: http://charearl.com/chickens/Keeping-Chicken-Chicken-Sour-Crop,-Prevention-and-Treatment.html

Of course she could have a different problem, so if you notice any other symptoms go ahead and list them.

 

[Lothiriel]

If she's vomiting she could have a sour crop -- one of my hens had that a couple weeks ago, and she had yucky poo stuck on her rear end feathers. If her crop is full but all squishy like it's full of liquid that's what it is. I found this article that really helped. http://www.1976design.com/blog/archive/2004/04/16/sour-crop/ There's no need to use the olive oil with sour crop though. That's best for an impacted crop, to get things loosened and movable.

Definitely give her some live culture plain yogurt -- Chobani is a good brand, and most Greek yogurts are live culture. She needs the bacteria to fight it because sour crop is a fungal infection. Her body is producing the fluid with digestive bacteria that she vomited to fight it, but the yogurt has more bacteria that will help her.

Also consider adding apple cider vinegar (ACV) to their water. It helps reduce chances of infections by killing off some of the bacteria. The common dosage is 1/4 cup ACV per gallon of water.

If you don't have live culture yogurt/can't get some soon, if you have any probiotic capsules/powder (like acidophilus), you acn give that to her. Just mix it in some milk or cream (be careful of the cream, I was told that the sugar content in cream can be too high and react with the bacteria like with yeast). You can also mix some bread or some of the feed with it to make it like a mash.

Good luck and keep up posted on how she's doing!

 

[samsun]

Day 2 and she's not much better. We tried yogurt---she avoids it. She is eating pellets and did stick out her neck to "greet" me. She is drinking alot, and still has green, RUNNY poops. She's in the garage, feeling lonely without her girlfriends. My 6-year-old prays for her often. So sweet.

 

[Lothiriel]

If she won't eat the yogurt on her own try using a syringe -- like an ear syringe -- and gently forcing her to take it. Open her mouth by gently pulling her wattles down so she has to open, and then just squeeze small amounts of the yogurt in. Once it's in her mouth she'll have to swallow.

 

[samsun]

Day 4--vomitting chicken is back in the coop! We're so happy. The yogurt must have done the trick! Thanks for all your advice! We're happy to still have our little "Violet".

 

[Lothiriel]

I'm so glad I was able to help! And hooray for Violet! (I have a girl named Violet too.

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