Hen Losing Weight, Feathers, Limping, Deflated Crop, Skinny

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Nifty-Chicken

Nifty-Chicken

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18 Years
Dec 26, 2006
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California - SF East Bay
My Coop
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I first started seeing signs a month ago and figured she was just molting at a different pace than her twin sister. Well, her sis looks great and she's still straggly.

She's then started limping so we figured it was a bad case of mites. Now her crop looks deflated relative to her sister's that looks full and she looks like she's loosing weight.

Tonight we will treat her for scaly leg mites and will take her out for examination and to separate her to keep an eye on her (couldn't catch her today when we tried).

Here she is:

2_slw-hen.jpg



Here she is with her sister for comparison (look at the difference in crops):

2_slw-hens.jpg



Any suggestions on what is going on, what to look for and/or how to treat?
 
even with a deflated crop, she could have sour crop.
try giving her some plain active culture yogurt.

has she been wormed? if so when? and what was used?
did you check her feet for any sores or scabs..
does she sit a lot?
she may need a boost of protein and calcium..

she IS looking poorly.

do treat her legs..

describe her droppings..color and consistency.
is the comb pale? is it shriveled?

in the meantime, do you have poultry vitamins on hand?
if not..you can use Poly-vi-sol liquid baby vitamins..Enfamil brand if possible..no iron..
2-3 drops on beak for a week..taper off for another week.

what all do you feed?

are they eating dead leaves in the pic?
 
Last edited:
The limping and weight loss is also an indicator of Marek's disease. People in our area have lost many chickens to this disease this year, even though they were vaccinated.
When you catch her check and see how thin the breast is, with mine they generally had no meat left on them by the time they died. It is very sad and there is nothing you can do about it.
I hope is is something else. I lost about 20 chickens (pullets and cockerels) this year to Marek's, my neighbor lost about 15. I had many of mine necropsied and found out through the ag dept. that many people around here lost lots of their chickens to Marek's even though they were vaccinated.
 

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