Weird head movements and lethargic.

[Mariakoltsa]

Hi!

My chickens have started to go very slowly. Maybe its the age but it doesn’t quite seem right. Taking months to pass in very miserable ways. Last chicken was not quite herself, very slow and standing still a lot and at the end i had to put her down because she had not drank for 4 days and not eaten for 7 days and stilll kept going. It was hard for me to put her down as if she just didnt want to go….that is not normal. How could she still be alive enough to stand up occasionally and make a sound when something scared her at that point ?
But now i have got our one and only true pet pekin bantam who has suddenly slowed down for the past two months and is getting less and less active. Yesterday finally was the day when she decided not to go to the chook pen and stayed on the verandah sleeping on the table. She keeps standing around just closing her eyes and not even eating treats like she used to. But now i noticed that she is declining faster and that she has weird head twitches. Please does anyone recognise this and what could it mean. I really want to know what they are dying of and can i help them.
Videos of the head twitches

This link is a longer better video:
https://vimeo.com/888335903

 

[BigBlueHen53]

How old are they?

 

[Mariakoltsa]

How old are they?

The ones pssing have been 3, 4 and the current one is the oldest at 5

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I'm sorry you're going through this. This sounds like a question for our best Educators. You might have an illness of some kind going through your flock. I'll tag them.
@Eggcessive
@azygous
@Wyorp Rock

Have you added any new chickens recently? Or been around anyone else's chickens, a chicken swap meet or anything like that?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Hi!

My chickens have started to go very slowly. Maybe its the age but it doesn’t quite seem right. Taking months to pass in very miserable ways. Last chicken was not quite herself, very slow and standing still a lot and at the end i had to put her down because she had not drank for 4 days and not eaten for 7 days and stilll kept going. It was hard for me to put her down as if she just didnt want to go….that is not normal. How could she still be alive enough to stand up occasionally and make a sound when something scared her at that point ?
But now i have got our one and only true pet pekin bantam who has suddenly slowed down for the past two months and is getting less and less active. Yesterday finally was the day when she decided not to go to the chook pen and stayed on the verandah sleeping on the table. She keeps standing around just closing her eyes and not even eating treats like she used to. But now i noticed that she is declining faster and that she has weird head twitches. Please does anyone recognise this and what could it mean. I really want to know what they are dying of and can i help them.
Videos of the head twitches

This link is a longer better video:
https://vimeo.com/888335903

I'm sorry for your losses.

What is her crop like? It looks quite full and pendulous. Check it first thing in the morning before she's had anything to eat/drink.
If it's not emptied by morning (after a night's sleep), then begin addressing that symptom according to this article https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

When is the last time she laid an egg?

What do you feed, including treats?



Check her over for lice/mites, if she has any, then treat her for those as well.

Often it's hard to know why a hen declined unless you have a necropsy, since you are in AU, you would likely have to go through a vet, vet collage, agriculture of ministry or something similar to have a professional necropsy. Sometimes just by doing your own (which a lot of us do) you can find out more by just looking at the state of the organs and reproductive system - it may be something to consider if you lose her.

 

[azygous]

Have you ever wormed your chickens? It may be something as simple as internal parasites multiplying to the extent that they form an obstruction in the intestines. This can set off a chain reaction where the chicken starves due to lack of movement of nutrients through the intestines. This in turn slows the crop so it becomes uncomfortable, thus the symptomatic neck movements we see in the hen in your video. Also, when a chicken is suffering from a blockage in the digestive tract, they have a craving for water.

It's a very simple and easy thing to try. Buy a worming medicine and worm your chickens. If that doesn't produce an improvement in the chickens that are showing signs of illness, then the next best step would be to find an animal testing lab and take the next chicken that appears to be close to death in for a necropsy. That will give you the answers you need.

 

[Mariakoltsa]

I'm sorry you're going through this. This sounds like a question for our best Educators. You might have an illness of some kind going through your flock. I'll tag them.
@Eggcessive
@azygous
@Wyorp Rock

Have you added any new chickens recently? Or been around anyone else's chickens, a chicken swap meet or anything like that?

Thank you !
We got some young chickens a while ago but im pretty sure they came after the first signs but i can’t be a 100-% sure. Nothing else otherwise. We did add roosters a while ago and then the girls started having more issues. We just gave the roosters away today because of their overall health.

 

[Mariakoltsa]

Have you ever wormed your chickens? It may be something as simple as internal parasites multiplying to the extent that they form an obstruction in the intestines. This can set off a chain reaction where the chicken starves due to lack of movement of nutrients through the intestines. This in turn slows the crop so it becomes uncomfortable, thus the symptomatic neck movements we see in the hen in your video. Also, when a chicken is suffering from a blockage in the digestive tract, they have a craving for water.

It's a very simple and easy thing to try. Buy a worming medicine and worm your chickens. If that doesn't produce an improvement in the chickens that are showing signs of illness, then the next best step would be to find an animal testing lab and take the next chicken that appears to be close to death in for a necropsy. That will give you the answers you need.

I have wormed her with Avitrol plus a few weeks ago, didn’t change anything. But autopsy/necropsy cost here is over at least a 1000$. Im not in that position at the moment..

 

[azygous]

Have you done a followup round to get any worm eggs that hatched after the adult worms were knocked out? Usually in two weeks a second worming will mop up any stragglers.

How about protozoan parasites such as coccidia? Have you tried a coccidiostat? Worming meds and a coccidiostat can safely be given together. Each works in a different way. The first sedates the intestinal worms so they are flushed out. The coccidiostat works to block thiamine (B-1) that coccidia thrives on for its life cycle.

It's criminal to charge so much for a necropsy. So do your own. It's surprising what any observant lay person with little to no scientific training can see by taking apart a dead chicken. Some things are so obviously out of place that they practically shout at you. We have some knowledgeable people here who can look at the parts in a chicken necropsy and tell you what they may mean. It doesn't cost a thing other than courage and willingness to do it.

 

[Mariakoltsa]

I'm sorry for your losses.

What is her crop like? It looks quite full and pendulous. Check it first thing in the morning before she's had anything to eat/drink.
If it's not emptied by morning (after a night's sleep), then begin addressing that symptom according to this article https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

When is the last time she laid an egg?

What do you feed, including treats?



Check her over for lice/mites, if she has any, then treat her for those as well.

Often it's hard to know why a hen declined unless you have a necropsy, since you are in AU, you would likely have to go through a vet, vet collage, agriculture of ministry or something similar to have a professional necropsy. Sometimes just by doing your own (which a lot of us do) you can find out more by just looking at the state of the organs and reproductive system - it may be something to consider if you lose her.

Hey,
So her crop is fine. And empties normally. Poops fine. Wormings and lice issues have ofcourse been the first reactions too but she is a pekin bantam so she doesn’t lay eggs so often but i do think that this laying period was very short and she stopped a few weeks ago.
Treats are pretty much our leftover foods and kitchen scraps and eggs.
But i rememberd something. About a few months ago my multiple chickens got very dirty bottoms and i grabbed a few at a time did cleaning and antifungal for a few days. Bum stayed clean for a while but then slowly came back. And when on one i managed to keep the bum sort of clean… the one that is dying now, the other symptoms like lethargy and everything else continued to get worse. I have never had muktiple chickens with dirty bottoms and if that was the case with some, then it was worms so that was fixed fast. But this is confusing… dirty bums- lethargic - fix bum- still lethargic- starting to sit around or suddenly stop walking to close eyes- slowly stop eating - then stop drinking - and basically starve and die or just get so bad and not moving and just die. Im going to keep thinking what it is. But it corresponded so well with getting roosters so i thought he was really rough on the girls so i separated the fragile ones but that was it…