Hen can’t walk or stand, not eating. Don’t know what’s wrong!

[Poppybutt]

1) What type of bird , age and weight (does the chicken seem or feel lighter or thinner than the others.)
Don’t know what mix but she seems like a white leghorn. She weighs about 4 pounds and is about the same size as her flock. She is about 1 year old.

2) What is the behavior, exactly.
She first started having trouble standing and walking, often trying to get up but seems like her legs would give away. Now she just sits in the coop all day. Stopped laying eggs for a while, I couldn’t identify which one until I saw her sitting in the coop while the others were out and about. She poops out undigested pellets and has yellowish urates, I will include the photos of it below.

3) How long has the bird been exhibiting symptoms?
She couldn’t walk for about 1 week. Isn’t eating food for 3 days now.

4) Are other birds exhibiting the same symptoms?
No

5) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma.
No. Felt the inside of the vent and outside of her belly, no swelling or egg inside (or it might be deeper in). Crop seems fine, it’s emptying and doesn’t smell off.

6) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation.
No

7) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all.
Drinking only if water is brought near here, doesn’t really look at the feed, would eat some boiled egg if brought to her, still goes crazy for treats.

8) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc.
Has undigested pellets in it.

9) What has been the treatment you have administered so far?
I have her calcium and vitamin b12. Dewormed her using safeguard pellets, although I’m not sure if it worked since the pellets look undigested.

10 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet?
I don’t have an avian vet near me so I intend to treat her myself.

11) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help.

Her legs don’t seem paralyzed since they curl up when we put a finger underneath it and she could still struggle to walk sometimes.

12) Describe the housing/bedding in use
Used pine shavings with some diatomaceous earth sprinkled on top.

 

[Eggcessive]

The yellow urates in her poop could be a sign of a liver disorder. That can be from a number of possible issues, such as egg yolk peritonitis, cancer, fatty liver hemorrhagic disease and heart failure (usually more in meat birds.) I would separate her near food and water, perhaps in a wire dog crate where she can see the other chickens. Offer her some scrambled egg and watery chicken feed in a small bowl in addition to her dry feed. Human vitamin B complex tablets with all B vitamins would be good to try 1/2 tablet daily crushed into food or in a spoonful of water. Chicken sling chairs may be good to get them upright in front of food and water. They should only be in those for periods , with time out of them to sleep or stretch. Hopefully, she is not dying, but I would offer supportive care to see if she recovers. Let us knwo how she gets along.

 

[Poppybutt]

The yellow urates in her poop could be a sign of a liver disorder. That can be from a number of possible issues, such as egg yolk peritonitis, cancer, fatty liver hemorrhagic disease and heart failure (usually more in meat birds.) I would separate her near food and water, perhaps in a wire dog crate where she can see the other chickens. Offer her some scrambled egg and watery chicken feed in a small bowl in addition to her dry feed. Human vitamin B complex tablets with all B vitamins would be good to try 1/2 tablet daily crushed into food or in a spoonful of water. Chicken sling chairs may be good to get them upright in front of food and water. They should only be in those for periods , with time out of them to sleep or stretch. Hopefully, she is not dying, but I would offer supportive care to see if she recovers. Let us knwo how she gets along.

Thanks for your reply! I will start her on B complex, should I continue to give her calcium and b12? She is at least eating some of the feed mash. And a fecal float came back negative for parasites.

Here’s a photo of her recent poops

 

[Poppybutt]

Unfortunately, she has made no progress even treating her with antibiotics and anti inflammatory medication. We cut her open to examine her, found a few suspicious things and want some knowledge into what was wrong with her. Warning those as this is my first time cutting up a chicken so I might have destroyed some of the organs.

WARNING! GRAPHIC PHOTOS!!

This seems like her ovary. This was the most concerning thing as I was expecting to see yellow-orange yolks but I saw a bunch of blue ones. There’s one healthy yolk as you can see but the rest looked blue.

I ripped it up but it might’ve been the liver. There’s a yellow and green tinge to it.

I’m guessing the spleen but it looks huge.

Here’s the chicken cavity. I just don’t know what that circled in blue is.

 

[Eggcessive]

I am not an expert on necropsy findings. Hopefully others will chime in. The blueish egg follicles may be infection. I tried to find some links with info:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure...orrhage-of-ovarian-follicles-A_fig1_225301308

This is an old thread with no real answers on a cause, but the picture was good:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...warning-graphic-pictures-of-a-chicken.660581/

Did you find yellow fluid from water belly when the abdomen was cut open? What did the intestines look like? The liver looks diseased. Did you see blood clots in the liver?

 

[Eggcessive]

I don’t know what is in the blue circle in your picture. I do think the shiny circular organ is the spleen. You may want to look at the necropsy video below where the organs are labeled for identification: