SpaghettiJo
Songster
Hi, one of my chickens (3yr old red sex link), Bertha, is not doing well at all. She has laid maybe two eggs in the past year, but I was not too worried about that because her health hasn't suffered until now & she's always been one of my strongest (& one of the two alphas of our small flock of 6!). None of the other chickens are sick, but I have her quarantined now, just in case. Whatever has been going on started last week when I noticed she had droppings stuck to her feathers under her vent, I bathed her & cleaned off her feathers, but she has continued to get droppings on herself. I even trimmed her feathers to try & help, but droppings continue to collect. Her comb has remained bright red, but it is extremely droopy. Yesterday, she was still in the coop & run with all of her sisters, & I was out there with them for the majority of the day, cleaning out their coop, replenishing their dust bath, etc. & I was keeping an eye on her the whole time - She slept for most of the day, just standing off in the corner & did not try to get away from me at all (even when I was breaking up the dirt around her with a shovel to help it dry out from the rain we got this past week). She did go out to forage with the rest of them, but her "foraging" only consisted of her very slowly, eating the tips of the grass blades & a few worms I had dug up for her (but she didn't even have the energy to eat the larger worm I found - which she normally loves). I separated her from the flock last night & have kept a close eye on her in our quarantine coop (basically just a very large dog cage with a roost) & have their regular food in there for her along with some coconut water with a splash of ACV. She has eaten very little & has only had a little bit of her water. I was thinking I might try to give her some canned cat food? Last night, she only had one dropping that I can see under the roost (I placed her up there because she didn't want to jump up on her own & was just going to sleep in the bedding) - it is a tad bit watery, green, I think maybe a very little amount of yellow (but it's hard to tell because of the hay), & white. I assume the green is from yesterday's outing, but I was concerned that she only had the one dropping (it's not very large). I picked her up yesterday by placing one of my hands in between her legs & the other to hold her wings down & I noticed that area seems to be more swollen than I think is normal (I could feel a bone when I picked up my other girls in the same way), but it didn't feel hard or anything. I will check in a little bit to see if that really is the case though. Her feathers are also a little puffed up as well. And yesterday when I was inside, my mom said she had seen the pesky little squirrel that keeps stealing their food in their run & it jumped off Bertha's back when it was getting away - She doesn't appear to be hurt from it or missing any feathers because of it, just thought it was worth a mention. She is missing some feathers from her upper neck area, but I'm not sure what that's from, but there is new growth. Any thoughts as to what I can give her or what I can do? Yes to cat food? Watermelon to help with hydration? Thank you so much for any help or insight y'all might have! We aren't able to take her to the vet right now, so anything helps!