advice needed, one of my chickens seems down?

[deejay]

HI all,
I was on here until recently, but hadnt posted for a while, then when I tried to check in... wouldnt recognise me? I saw the notice about please post if you join, but does that apply to members who dont post for a while too?

Anyway, I really need some advice please.... I have three hens, bought after my mistake in forgetting to lock up one night in the spring resulted in losing my girls to the fox One is light Sussex, one bluebelle and my speckledy who has never really matured, and im pretty sure doesnt lay, (she must be around a year old now, as I bought these girls at POL some 4-5 months ago) is looking a bit odd.... she seems to hold her neck in, so her head rests on her chest? I managed to grab her, which in itself is unusual, as these girls are nowhere near as friendly as my last lot, sadly, to check her crop as it looked huge, but it was just fluffed up feathers underneath. She is eating, but nowhere near as greedily as before, and now kind of stops eating and seems to be stretching her neck to the side, then hunching it down for a bit, then starting to eat again... normally, she doesnt stop eating at corn time in the afternoon till every speck of corn is gone....bit worried about her. Any ideas? no sign of poorly eyes or any sort of respiratory infection... She is coming out, running around, as normal, but just seems to stand with her head hunched down into her neck?

Someone said might be a blockage, and to feed maggots to clear the crop (eeeuk!)... Id be grateful if anyone has any ideas at all what this might be and how to deal with it.
thanks,
Lynne

 

[Marigold]

Hi Lynne, when was the last time they were wormed with Flubenvet?

 

[deejay]

probably too long, Marigold. I did them when I got them, and dont think Ive done them since. Will add some to their food today. Could it be that?
Went out with some maggots this morning, yuk, and she ate well, but seems a little unsteady on her legs now. Not sure if that was because she was sat in the sand box, and had cramped up a bit, but seemed to be a bit wobbly, and kind of flopping back onto her bottom.

 

[Frenchhens]

Her symptoms sound similar to those of my Hen. All of my hens have been wormed and she is the one one who appears ill. I hope we can find out how to help these poorly birds!

 

[Marigold]

Hi Deejay, I asked about the worming as this is always the first thing one thinks about when chickens are off colour. You might find it helpful to read this link to the main Poultrykeepr site about wormin, especially the link on there about gapeworm. http://poultrykeeper.com/general-chickens/worming-chickens
If you are now able to give them all a course of flubenvet, you really need to do it properly, ie confine them to their run for 7 full days and ONLY feed pellets treated with the wormer, so they each have to eat the proper dose for their bodyweight and are not able to fill up on anything else, (especially high-protein maggots, much as they will love them!) I'm doing my girls ATM, and i find it helps it to go down if i make them a nice warm damp mash of the treated pellets, fed on a large sociable plate, at the end of the afternoon before they go to roost. they really seem to tuck into this.
I wouldn't like to give any opinion about whether your hen is suffering from worms, gapeworm in particular, but if it's more than 6 months since their last full they will have worms, these will be pulling them down and may be making any other health problems worse, so it wouold be good to start there. Do keep in touch and let us knbow how she gets on. Maybe other people will have more ideas to offer you as well.

 

[deejay]

Thanks Marigold, she doesnt seem to be holding her mouth open, but I will worm them starting tomorrow. You are right, till you mentioned it, I had forgotten to keep it up. I also have some layer's mash, so I geuss I could also put some in that, and use to give them before bed, in place of their normal corn? Im assuming the weight ratios are about the same?

 

[Marigold]

Each adult large or medium sized hen will eat about 125 grams of pellets per day, so with your three girls you need to mix 375 grams X 7 , that comes to 2625 grams. So weigh out 3 kilos of feed to make sure you have enough, and to make it easy to work out quantities. Put about a mugful into a large bowl, and mix in some vegetable oil, enough to coat the pellets in the bowl and help the Flubenvet powder to stick to them. Mix the right amount of powder into it, this will be 1.5 scoops in 3 kilos of feed, if you are using the 1% kind of Flubenvet for domestic users. Mix very throughly, then gradually add the other pellets in small batches, mixing as you go so the treated ones get evenly distributed. Empty the feeder of untreated pellets and put about half the treated pellets in it instead, for them to eat during the day. You can top this up if necessary during the week. If you want to give them a nice warm damp mash at tea time, give a large handful of treated pellets each, soaked but not sloppy. It would perhaps be tricky to mix the layers mash separately from the pellets so maybe you could save this to use for damp mashes later on, when normal feeding resumes. Its the same stuff as the pellets, only the hens are more likely to be able to pick out the bits they like and waste the rest. Anyway, feed nothing else for a week - they may not like it, but they will be better for it!

 

[deejay]

Thanks Marigold. Sadly, when I took the treated feed down this evening, so as to have it ready for them in the morning, the poorly hen had died. I am once again down to just two. Im just hoping that whatever it was she had, they dont get. She had always seemed the most lusty of the three, even though she didnt ever develop her comb and wattles, and never laid an egg!! She went down so quickly, in just over a couple of days. Im just hoping the other two are ok, as dont want to find myself with just one again..

 

[Marigold]

So sorry to hear this - hens are very stoic when unwell, they try not to show it in case the others sense their weakness and bully them, so it's not surprising you didn't realise how ill she really was. From what you say, it sounds as if she was never really healthy or productive, so maybe you did well to keep her going as long as you did. At least she just slipped away quietly, and you didn't have any difficult decisions to make. i would keep on with the worming programme for the others, you don't want to waste all that treated food, and maybe consider a chicken tonic for them as well when the flubenvet is done.