Drooping wings, weak chicken. Help please!

[Jnel88]

Hey guys, this morning I let my hens out and one of the girls (she’s about a year old I think) is very obviously unwell. Her wings are dragging to the point where she’s stepping on them. Her feathers are puffed up as well, and she’s rather weak. She took a couple bites of food and then stood off to the side, and now she’s laying down and doesn’t want to stand. She ate some food when offered, she didn’t drink any water I offered her. I don’t know what to do or what else to look for. Help me please!!

Oh yea, their diet has changed a bit, they aren’t full blown free range in my entire yard any more so they aren’t eating as much grass as before. They have some grass and they eat a fair amount of bugs in their giant hen run. I fed them some left over noodles yesterday which I usually don’t give them a whole lot of table scrapes maybe once a week, depending on what it is. They have a scratch mix with different whole grains, sunflower seed and a layer pellet mixed in.

 

[azygous]

First of all, your hen could be sick with any of a hundred different chicken diseases. Just as a doctor would need to ask you a lot of questions if you were to go to them and say "I'm sick, fix me," we need to know a lot more about your hen if we're going to be able to help her.

The two most common reasons a hen gets sick are egg problems and crops problems. So, let's begin with the crop. It's important to check her crop first thing in the morning before she has a chance to eat anything to be sure it's completely empty. If her crop is full, that means she has a crop illness.

If the crop is full in the morning, determine if it's soft and squishy or hard and lumpy. Here's is an article to help you tell which disorder you're dealing with and how to treat it, if you find your hen has a full crop. https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

If her crop is normal, then maybe she has reproductive problems. This could be anything from a stuck egg to an infection in her system. You will need to feel her abdomen down under her vent to check for swelling or a hard egg that may be straining to come out.

When you go out to check her crop in the morning, check her poop. Is it runny or solid? Is it white, green, yellow, or thin, watery brown? Poop can tell us a lot.

Meanwhile, be thinking about the possibility that she may have encountered some pesticides or scratched up some grit that was contaminated by machinery fluids that had leaked onto the soil. Is it possible she got some rotten food? Now that they don't free range, do the chickens still have access to grit in their run?

Those are just a few places to start.

 

[Jnel88]

First of all, your hen could be sick with any of a hundred different chicken diseases. Just as a doctor would need to ask you a lot of questions if you were to go to them and say "I'm sick, fix me," we need to know a lot more about your hen if we're going to be able to help her.

The two most common reasons a hen gets sick are egg problems and crops problems. So, let's begin with the crop. It's important to check her crop first thing in the morning before she has a chance to eat anything to be sure it's completely empty. If her crop is full, that means she has a crop illness.

If the crop is full in the morning, determine if it's soft and squishy or hard and lumpy. Here's is an article to help you tell which disorder you're dealing with and how to treat it, if you find your hen has a full crop. https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

If her crop is normal, then maybe she has reproductive problems. This could be anything from a stuck egg to an infection in her system. You will need to feel her abdomen down under her vent to check for swelling or a hard egg that may be straining to come out.

When you go out to check her crop in the morning, check her poop. Is it runny or solid? Is it white, green, yellow, or thin, watery brown? Poop can tell us a lot.

Meanwhile, be thinking about the possibility that she may have encountered some pesticides or scratched up some grit that was contaminated by machinery fluids that had leaked onto the soil. Is it possible she got some rotten food? Now that they don't free range, do the chickens still have access to grit in their run?

Those are just a few places to start.

Thank you for your response! I have her in the sick pen now, hopefully she poops in there and I can see what that looks like. When I brought her in her crop was empty because she hasn’t been able to stand to eat I’m assuming. I will definitely check her vent as well, I didn’t think to do that cuz I’m a newby to sick chickens. And I didn’t think about the grit thing, I will find some for them tomorrow.

We have been doing some machine work in our yard (which is why they aren’t free range now) and one of the machines did spring a leak at one point.... and I wouldn’t put rotten food out of the question either since our compost pile used to be where their run is now, so it is very likely she could have gotten into something toxic but I don’t really know how to tell.

Thank you for telling me how to start diagnosing things and I hope I can provide more helpful information soon

 

[azygous]

You've just provided another clue. If the chickens have been digging deep into the litter on the run floor, there may be insects infected with the botulism bacteria that this sick hen ate. In that case, I would start her on an antibiotic immediately. Do you have any at all on hand?

You might also give her a molasses flush, about a teaspoon of molasses in a cup of water as her only water source. It can help flush toxins out of her intestines.

 

[Jnel88]

You've just provided another clue. If the chickens have been digging deep into the litter on the run floor, there may be insects infected with the botulism bacteria that this sick hen ate. In that case, I would start her on an antibiotic immediately. Do you have any at all on hand?

You might also give her a molasses flush, about a teaspoon of molasses in a cup of water as her only water source. It can help flush toxins out of her intestines.

She still hasn’t pooped as of this morning, and now I am on my way out to fetch antibiotics and molasses! Thank you again for your input, I’ve been scouring the internet and I did come across a botulism article last night that sounded like her symptoms but I still haven’t been able to get as much research done as I’d like.

 

[Jnel88]

Update: last night my poor hen finally let out a large waterey poop, it was a little runny but oh my goodness there were a couple of (what I’m assuming to be) ROUNDWORMS. Soooo gross. And the poop she passed this morning looked normal except there were even more worms in it. So I’m shifting gears and am going to see what my feed store offers on dewormer. Was it the molasses that flushed the worms out? I keep looking in the coop and pen for signs of worms and I feel like I would have noticed something as bad as what she is passing now. My poor birds! I hate worms I want to deworm everything I own now

 

[azygous]

Safeguard is an all purpose wormer. It's for horses, but I just squeeze out about half and inch of the apple-flavor gel for each chicken and swipe it into the side of their beak. You could do it again in about ten days to be sure you got any eggs that may have hatched.

Yes, the molasses flush will cleanse the intestines. It causes the runs, and that cleans out the chicken. You still need the wormer though.

You should do all the flock since the worm eggs are passed around on the ground from feces.

 

[Georgey]

First of all, your hen could be sick with any of a hundred different chicken diseases. Just as a doctor would need to ask you a lot of questions if you were to go to them and say "I'm sick, fix me," we need to know a lot more about your hen if we're going to be able to help her.

The two most common reasons a hen gets sick are egg problems and crops problems. So, let's begin with the crop. It's important to check her crop first thing in the morning before she has a chance to eat anything to be sure it's completely empty. If her crop is full, that means she has a crop illness.

If the crop is full in the morning, determine if it's soft and squishy or hard and lumpy. Here's is an article to help you tell which disorder you're dealing with and how to treat it, if you find your hen has a full crop. https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

If her crop is normal, then maybe she has reproductive problems. This could be anything from a stuck egg to an infection in her system. You will need to feel her abdomen down under her vent to check for swelling or a hard egg that may be straining to come out.

When you go out to check her crop in the morning, check her poop. Is it runny or solid? Is it white, green, yellow, or thin, watery brown? Poop can tell us a lot.

Meanwhile, be thinking about the possibility that she may have encountered some pesticides or scratched up some grit that was contaminated by machinery fluids that had leaked onto the soil. Is it possible she got some rotten food? Now that they don't free range, do the chickens still have access to grit in their run?

Those are just a few places to start.

What to do if its a stuck egg that's troubling her??