Are my chickens ok?? Please help!

[Chickenbabysitter]

I need help. I’m house sitting for my in-laws and today when we went to check the chickens the one hen had a large lump of frozen mess on her butt. She was laying down, couldn’t stand up. We brought her inside to thaw it out by the fire and to warm her up. She drank water and then ended up puking it all up and dying. When checking the other hens one other had the same type of frozen mess starting. Both hens also had diarrhea. What do I do?? Is my other hen okay?

 

[BigBlueHen53]

This is poop frozen to and around the vent? If so you need to clean it off. If you have gloves, wear them. I would take her into the bathroom and run some warm water and use wet paper towels to try to soak it off and gently try to remove it. But don't let large chunks of dried poop go down your drain, have a trash can or something handy to put it in as it comes off. When she's clean use a hair dryer set to warm and low to dry her off. Keep the air flow moving quickly back and forth so you don't overheat her. Then put her in a dog crate if you have one overnight. Maybe offer her some sugar water (1 tsp sugar in a cup of warm water), hold it up to her beak and see if she'll take some. Offer her some plain yogurt or a ɓoiled egg yolk and some of her regular feed, moistened to a paste consistency. Let us know how she goes.

 

[Chickenbabysitter]

The first one it was a large ice block, but it was all below her vent. I don’t know much, but her vent appeared to look all ok. Just stuck in all her feathers. I almost had it all off her feathers before she started puking and died.

The one still out in the coop just have a small amount frozen, also below the vent just stuck in her feathers.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Is their coop open to the weather at all? How are they getting wet?

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Can you use the hair dryer to melt it off and get her warm?

 

[Chickenbabysitter]

It’s extremely cold where we are. Temperatures around -30 or colder at night. We did some more to help the coop today. We added two more heat lamps so now there are 4. We blocked off any openings to try to keep the heat in and added a fresh bead of straw down. I don’t know why it’s freezing like that. Is it because they are having diarrhea? Does that mean they are sick? Like I said, I know nothing! Just house sitting.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I'm a little puzzled. It is frozen poop you're dealing with, or just ice?

 

[BigBlueHen53]

And where are you, in general, like what state or country are you in?

 

[Chickenbabysitter]

I’m in Manitoba. It’s been very cold and will be cold for the next week too. It was a large frozen chunk, probably as large as a tennis ball. I just learned that chickens don’t pee.. so I’m guessing it was all poop.. but that seems like a lot. Unless she got super wet and frozen from their water dish.

 

[Chickenbabysitter]

the tennis ball size was on the hen that died. The one in the coop it’s seems more like just frozen poop along her bottom feathers. No where even near as large as the first one.

Sorry I keep talking about two things. Trying to figure out what happened to the dead hen and what is going on with the other one.