Fatigued/Lethargic old Hen

[AtomicVulture]

I know i said i was abandoning this site because the weak chick i was trying to help ended up dying due to me falling asleep for 3 hours but now I have an injured hen.

My hen, Bowie, has been in a relatively muddy pen for a bit because we're building a 2nd one (for rotating) they never had an issue with the mud but Bowie sadly either got pushed over or slipped and couldn't get up.

She's a shaver at about 6-8 years old now so if she dies she had a damn good run but she managed to survive a night by herself with just her old flock mate, Crook, a shaver of the same age.

I checked on her this morning (about an hour ago at 7am) and she was still fast asleep, crook was eager to leave the dog crate however so I let her out for the day.

She was incredibly muddy yesterday when I found her and I gagged due to the smell, but I washed her and dried her, then let her fall asleep for the day in a box in my bedroom with a heater going.

She was wrapped due to me thinking she had sprained her wing but I think she's just too tired to hold them up, and she couldn't balance well because of it, so she fell over last night at some point but I took the wrap off and now she's resting in the crate with fresh food and water.

I have had a hen die a while back from what I assumed was mareks disease but I've seen people say that a year old is late for mareks to kick in? All 3 of them were the same age and they've been in my care for atleast 6 years. we euthanized the hen with leg paralysis (strangely she was also blind but even if it wasnt mareks she wouldn't have had a good life after that anyway.)

Bowie and Crook both have deformities so I wonder if maybe they just don't have a good build, Crook has an entirely smooth/dull beak and a rotated toe (it doesn't hurt) Bowie has two different sized pupils and her top piece of her beak is dull so she has an underbite.

Bowie is very slim currently, im not entirely sure why. They're fed daily but again have little to no grass to eat, (we're working on fixing that dw) plus she can eat perfectly fine even with her underbite and she is eating and drinking.

I dont think I will mind too much if she ends up dying, she's lived a long time considering its just them 2 and a hen named Snow in a different coop that lived longer than their 8-10 member flock.

I just want to know why she's still so tired after sleeping all day and last night.

Snow got her foot caught in the fence of her coop recently for a good while because we were out in town and she made a recovery quickly, and she's 9 years old.

Shes just so so tired and she was only stuck for less than an hour, god knows how long Snow was stuck for and she's perfectly fine now.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'm sorry she's not doing well, she looks to be very sick to me.

If she's still in a state of decline, you may want to consider putting her out of her misery.

Unfortunately, we often do no know what caused a decline until after the hen dies and further inspection is done. This is either through necropsy performed by a pathologist at a state lab, a vet or similar. Sometimes if you open a hen up yourself you will be able to tell what was going on.

If she's still with you, then work on getting her hydrated. Once drinking, then offer food. Look her over for lice/mites. I don't really know much of anything else you can do, with her hunched like that she's in a bad way. She may benefit from extra calcium for a few days just in case she's got a soft shelled egg she's trying to expel.

 

[AtomicVulture]

I'm sorry she's not doing well, she looks to be very sick to me.

If she's still in a state of decline, you may want to consider putting her out of her misery.

Unfortunately, we often do no know what caused a decline until after the hen dies and further inspection is done. This is either through necropsy performed by a pathologist at a state lab, a vet or similar. Sometimes if you open a hen up yourself you will be able to tell what was going on.

If she's still with you, then work on getting her hydrated. Once drinking, then offer food. Look her over for lice/mites. I don't really know much of anything else you can do, with her hunched like that she's in a bad way. She may benefit from extra calcium for a few days just in case she's got a soft shelled egg she's trying to expel.

she's way too old to be even making eggs, but I have added some crushed/powdered eggshell to her food a few times.

she's looking worse this morning but I'm going to see how she is around 10am.

I think it's majorly just old age.

edit:
she was very tired in the morning yesterday but ate and drank quite a bit in midday, so currently all she's doing is sleeping heavily, she'll probably die on her own anyway as she is old.

edit 2: its 2:30pm, she has died im afraid, she died peacefully while having a snooze , im 100% certain it wasnt Mareks because she could use her legs and all her symptoms lined up with her dying from old age. again, shes about 7 years old, the oldest average age is 10, and i hope Snow makes it to ten atleast on her own.

Crook is doing well, i think i might seperate her from the flock as they can be pretty overwhelming and i can only imagine how that might be for her, so i will probably let her out once we make a pen for the roosters.

she has been buried in a food crop area, im sure she would’ve loved to raid that before her death but now she will find her favourite foods in chicken heaven

 

[Wyorp Rock]

she's way too old to be even making eggs, but I have added some crushed/powdered eggshell to her food a few times.

she's looking worse this morning but I'm going to see how she is around 10am.

I think it's majorly just old age.

edit:
she was very tired in the morning yesterday but ate and drank quite a bit in midday, so currently all she's doing is sleeping heavily, she'll probably die on her own anyway as she is old.

edit 2: its 2:30pm, she has died im afraid, she died peacefully while having a snooze , im 100% certain it wasnt Mareks because she could use her legs and all her symptoms lined up with her dying from old age. again, shes about 7 years old, the oldest average age is 10, and i hope Snow makes it to ten atleast on her own.

Crook is doing well, i think i might seperate her from the flock as they can be pretty overwhelming and i can only imagine how that might be for her, so i will probably let her out once we make a pen for the roosters.

she has been buried in a food crop area, im sure she would’ve loved to raid that before her death but now she will find her favourite foods in chicken heaven

I'm sorry to hear she died.

7 years is a good old age for a hen, it sounds like she had a nice life with someone who cared for her.