What in the world??

barredrckgirl

Hatching
Feb 13, 2015
6
0
7
Ok... looking for some ideas as to what may have happened to my hen. All the others are fine & laying everyday. This one never laid a single egg. She started losing weight & the others were picking on her. So i cagesd her up, started giving her some electrolytes & she seemed to be doing better. I put her back in the barn last night. Now shes half dead, eyes closed head all twisted back & legs straight out.. What in the world happened to her? Any ideas?

* Just went to check on her... she passed away... This is so confusing and frustrating!! :(
 
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Welcome to BYC. Sorry for your loss. How old was your hen? Did she have a twisted neck, as well as her legs being straight out? She sounds like she had a neurological disease, perhaps Mareks disease, but other things can look like Mareks. It would be best to know more symptoms, and possibly gt a necropsy by the state vet, especially if you lose another one. Here is a link for contacting your state vet, as well as 3 good links to read on Mareks:
http://www.usaha.org/Portals/6/StateAnimalHealthOfficials.pdf
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/the-great-big-giant-mareks-disease-faq
http://extension.unh.edu/resources/files/Resource000791_Rep813.pdf
http://partnersah.vet.cornell.edu/avian-atlas/#/disease/Marek's_Disease
 
I did some research on that and inner laying, since I never got a single egg from her. And all the others from her same batch are laying every day. She was 9 months old. And was always the smallest. About 2 weeks ago, 1 of my drakes roughed her and one of my other hens up. Pulled out some tail feathers and butt feathers. She wasn't as bad as the other one. The other hen has regrown all of hers already, but this one never got all of hers back. Like I said, I separated her, started her on mash and electrolytes in her water. She seemed to be doing fine, free ranging and so on. So I put her back in the barn with the others. When I went in there this afternoon to chore, all the rest came running except for her. So I went into the coop and she was just laying there, legs straight out, laying on her side with her neck kind of bent beak up. Her eyes were open. But when I picked her up, she was limp. Then she started turning her neck from side to side like she was seizing. I brought her back in the garage and put her back in the cage, and she just laid there. When I went out to check her she started flopping her wings and flipping around and then just passed. I just don't get it. She was fine this morning. And none of my others are showing signs of anything.
 

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