Smelly hen....

BeachBumBiddies

Crowing
14 Years
Feb 18, 2010
759
82
306
FL
Hi! I'm sorry if this question has been asked and answered already but I have been looking for about an hour and can't find an answer. I have several (about 200) Chickens.
I picked up one of my fav Buff Cochin hens yesterday and she was smelly, sort of like a dead carcass smell. I seem to remember that there is some sort of sickness, disease or parasite that is associated w/ this, but for the life of me, I cannot remember what it is. Can someone please HELP?! I have to nip this in the bud quickly, so none of the others get sick. She is acting normal, however. Thank you.
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The only helpful thing I can say is that I just recently saw a thread (I have spent about 10 min. trying to find it without success) where someone's chicken smelled bad and they said it might be ?(I don't really remember well) lice/mites.

Have you checked your chicken for this: inspected the vent area, under the wings, at the base of the feathers?
 
Check her over thoroughly for wounds that are maggot infested. Decaying carcass is a good description of the odor. You will need to thoroughly flush the wound with hydrogen peroxide (regular strength, not diluted), making sure you get all maggots and decayed tissue out. Keep flushing until it looks clean. Then apply SWAT or FLYS OFF ointment (same product one marketed for dogs, the other for horses). Put her on a strong broad spectrum antibiotic and keep her inside, away from flies and other bugs. You can lightly cover with a bandage, but the wound needs plenty of oxygen. I also suggest treating with ivermectin pour-on. At least daily, twice per day is better, you will need to flush the wound with diluted povidone iodine. Keep doing this until the wound closes on its own. Feed a nutrient dense diet; add crickets, superworms, waxworms, hard boiled egg, handfeeding formula, live culture yogurt and similar to her crumbles or pellets. Gatorade or pedialyte will keep her electrolytes stable.
 
I had this problem as well, but it didn't exactly smell like dead carcass, it was a foul smell that wasn't coming from the nostrils or anything, it was the body of the birds that smelled. The response I got when I asked this was to check for lice/mites or wounds. My birds had lice and after dusting them they seem to be less stinky, so I really think it was just the lice causing the smell on my birds.
 

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