hen not walking for over 2 weeks, eats, alert... just weak legs..14 months...help me please :(

[hughes homested]

this group has been a wealth of info to me over the past 14 months of having my flock so i'm hoping that you guys can help me save "Martha" now. she is a 14 month old light brahma. this started about 4.5 weeks ago when she started sitting & panting more than her sisters (& walking with her tail down whenever she did walk). it is hot here in alabama so i added watering stations, iced their water daily & put fans in the run of their coop. she & her favorite sister started sleeping outdoors in a secured run since the heat set in so i figured it was just that she couldnt tolerate it as well. she started to walk strangely, not like a waddle but more like a sumo wrestler...chest out, tail tucked, and almost like she had to force her legs to move. two weeks after noticing these symptoms she started to not walk at all so i separated her. She sits in a sling we made for her & sleeps in a dog kennel. she is alert & eating. poop is a little loose but okay. she is panting less but then again she just lays under the fan directly all day. she was ordered from a hatchery along with her sisters & was vaccinated. she was wormed back in april. she has layer pellets, mealworms for treats, free choice oyster shell & they free range supervised probably 4 hrs a day 4 days a week. i have given her polyvisol for a week thinking maybe vitamin deficiency, added electrolytes & minerals to water, added apple cider vinegar to water just yesterday, olive oil only twice out of desperation these past couple of days just in case of a stopped up crop (no swelling or smell anywhere on her though), she has been treated with permethrin despite no obvious signs of parasites. she has had vaseline treatment for scaly leg mites a few weeks ago when she began to limp just because with feather legs i couldnt tell if she might have them. if it were an injury wouldnt she be improving by now? i keep just adding treatments when i see that the others dont work after a few days. figure at this point it cant hurt she will stand momentarily & will even take about 3 steps but then uses her wing to lower herself back down. what else can i possibly do? i dont want to give up on her but i also dont want to prolong this if she has no hope of ever walking again. she is not currently laying but she is losing feathers like crazy & growing in lots of pin feathers so im sure this is her first molt as well. her tummy seems fine, missing feathers but no swelling..she doesnt have bumblefoot (& im experienced with it so i know its not that). she has a red comb & wattle. no drainage, no respiratory issues at all. sorry so wordy...just at a loss here. thanks for your time and hopefully some advice......

 

[Eggcessive]

It seems that a molt can be stressful, and chickens can be weakened, and that may be when common illnesses can affect them. Is she overweight? Is her crop emptying overnight? What does her crop feel like? She possibly could have some reproductive problem, or any number of things going on. Was she vaccinated for Mareks disease? Have you added any new birds recently that might have been a carrier? Could your local vet run a fecal float on her droppings to look for worms or coccidiosis.

 

[hughes homested]

she was a big but not overweight hen before all this started. she is losing weight. her keel bone is very pronounced. in addition to that, her fluff is all going away as she loses her feathers so she looks pitiful. im not sure about the crop. it never even fills completely. she will eat when i tempt her with eggs & mealworms (i have been scrambling her eggs a few times a day for the past 2 wks) but she is so far from the little piggy she was before she has been pooping about 6 times a day so not nearly as much as a normal chicken. i assume she was vaccinated for mareks along with her other baby vaccinations. her feet grip fine. they dont go in any weird directions. she just acts like making them move is painful/difficult for her. she can flap her wings to give her enough lift to propel her a couple of steps. have you ever heard of anything like this? i called vet and they dont deal with chickens so they referred me to a farm vet who travels this area and he said "most people just cull them" and that he only treats livestock type animals. i can call my dogs vet back in the a.m. to ask them if they will just run the fecal. i havent seen any blood in droppings to indicate cocci. all of her sisters are fine & we havent added any new chickens to their coop. there are 8 ladies in a 6x14 coop.

 

[hughes homested]

okay so tomorrow is 2 weeks since i had to separate martha from her flock. she's
about the same. not walking, will stand & preen while being super wobbly then lowers herself back down with her wing. she has seemed hungrier the last 2 days though so i am hoping this is a positive sign. she has began stepping a couple of steps to the back of her dog crate at dusk as if she is going thru the motions of going to roost. my son built her a sling to sit in so she sits in that daily, sleeps in the dog crate. im hoping her appetite continues to improve & she gets more steady on her feet because we leave for vacation in another week i have noone who would be willing to take on a special needs hen while we are out of town. it is difficult enough to ask someone to come tend all the healthy animals. in addition to that, my husband is ready to have my focus off of her...he says i am worrying entirely too much & devoting too much time to a cause that he thinks is a dead end basically (a $2 chicken he says!) i come on here to vent mainly i guess because im not getting much in the way of responses (except eggcessive-- thank u by the way ) any advice or guidance if u have been thru anything similar to marthas situation would be well received

also, i cannot rule out heat stroke..she has never been very heat tolerant. if it were that, will she ever regain her ability to walk? i dont want to put her down but her days are numbered...she has 7 days till i have to face it. she has been handicapped for 2.5 weeks...was partially so for about 1.5 before that so this has gone on for about a month. her quality of life is not great being away from her flock (im sure shes lonely) but she just seems so alert and talkative and fine other than not walking. she prefers to eat only out of my hand so this is making me bond with her even more...as if i needed that..............

 

[Wyorp Rock]

this started about 4.5 weeks ago

sitting & panting

she started to walk strangely, not like a waddle but more like a sumo wrestler...chest out, tail tucked, and almost like she had to force her legs to move. two weeks after noticing these symptoms she started to not walk at all

I understand that she has stopped laying do to molting now - but 4.5wks ago, was she laying any eggs at all?
http://www.chickenvet.co.uk/health-and-common-diseases/egg-laying-issues/index.aspx

 

[hughes homested]

i can t be sure because she was always in the coop with her sisters...i never really knew if she was laying. we did get some soft shelled eggs during the weeks leading up to her illness. they were left in the run ( under the perch where she had begun to sleep) so i suspect her being the hen who layed them but i cant say definitively. thank u for the reply.

 

[hughes homested]

she isnt swelling anywhere now sso i havent suspected any interal laying issues. i thought maybe ms......

 

[Wyorp Rock]

she isnt swelling anywhere now sso i havent suspected any interal laying issues. i thought maybe ms......

""i thought maybe ms..." I don't know what ms is?
Your description of her walking like a Sumo wrestler makes me think she has some type of reproductive disorder. I could be wrong. You may not always see swelling if there are internal laying disorders - feeling the abdomen and comparing it to other hens would be a good idea.
If you have vet care- having a poop sample tested to rule out worms and coccidiosis overload would be a good idea.

 

[andreanar]

I have no advice, but just wanted to wish you good luck and I hope you can figure this out.

 

[hughes homested]

thank u very much andreanar. i have been away for vacation so i did not realize i had any replies.

update on my martha girl: the days leading up to our vacation i started to notice improvements....her appetite improved some (she would actually peck at the ground a little using her beak to scratch the ground while she was laying down in the yard for vitamin d time), her ability to stand for longer, she could move around in her crate occasionally by taking a couple of wobbly steps at a time & even scurried back to me when i put her out to sun one day...she had to use her wings to gain momentum but she managed to cover about 4' of ground in a small amount of time!..sooooo...i decided to risk it (she had been in coop for 2wks with her sisters before i had isolated her so technically they had already been exposed to whatever she was suffering) & put her back in coop while we were gone. it was either this or my husband would have to put her down--the sitters we had lined up to tend to our animals couldnt be expected to do all the things i was doing for her on a daily basis. i reintroduced her to her flock a couple of days before our departure in hopes that they would welcome her back peacefully. our sitters did an amazing job tending our critters while we were gone & they even went above & beyond with martha. we were gone for 6 days and returned the day before yesterday. martha still isnt well but she is walking more (maybe 8 steps at a time) she still tires easily & sits most of the time but she is able to get to the food & water on her own. her molt is improving. her poop is solid now. she was able to get onto roost last night (...i had to help her off the perch this morning) but my son had to put her up there tonight. she has been sleeping on the ground for so long that she needs some air circulation for her tummy. it has lost its feathers and had become raw from all the laying down. i am encouraged by her seeming to be doing some better but i am trying to be cautiously optimistic this has been going on now for about 6 weeks.