Loss of appetite, standing still with eyes shut

T

tuscan440

New member
Joined
Jul 7, 2016
Messages
14
Reaction score
0
Hi all

I'm concerned for one of my hens as she's really gone downhill in a week. She started off just being a bit slow in her movements and occasionally squinting but now she is losing weight, standing still a lot and has her eyes closed most of the time. She is barely eating, the only way i can get her to eat is by hand feeding her mealworm but she is not interested in anything else. Her faeces is watery at times and her comb has flopped over but she still has good colour for now. I'm really concerned, as mentioned in a previous post with my other hen who has a moulting issue (but appears to be much better in herself now) i have done all that i can terms of diet and supplements, stopping short of giving them antibiotics. Is that the next step? If so can i order with peace of mind online or do i need to visit the vets?
 
Hi tuscan,

If she isn’t eating then her dropping will tend to be watery, presuming that she is drinking. You need a diagnosis before you can select an antibiotic and that means a trip to the vet - the wrong antibiotic (or an unnecessary antibiotic) will be worse than nothing. In the meantime, and in case she is egg bound or with a broken egg, a warm bath will do no harm - to relax her and maybe get things moving.
(it should be pleasantly warm like for a baby for 20 minutes - a little warmer maybe like the body temp of a healthy hen - plain water to their middle. If its warm they usually settle down quickly and enjoy it but you have to hold them the whole time - then pat dry with kitchen roll and blow dry if its not a warm day)
I would also keep her in a separate cage for peace and quiet and so you can properly observe what’s happening.
Hope that helps. Good luck.
 
Have you checked her crop for impaction?, watery poo is normally a symptom of a blockage in the digestive tract either in the crop or more dangerously the gizzard.
 
Well i hope a warm bath can solve the issue and I'll do that tomorrow if she is still alive.

I was unaware of what impaction was so haven't been looking for it but she doesn't look any different.
 
But there has to be something causing the impaction/blockage - long grass, feathers, worms? Do any of those seem likely?
An impacted crop should be obvious by a hard lumpy or squishy ballooning crop and bad breath. Gizzard? Don't know but hard to tell I would think - at least while alive!
If it's a bacterial infection (treatable with antibiotics) then it's likely to be in the oviduct (egg gone wrong) or respiratory. Runny nose, eyes? If it's an oviduct problem then a warm bath can help pass the initial cause though it won't clear an infection (if there is one and not just egg bound) unless that happens naturally (pretty unlikely if not eating.)
And obviously, eating and drinking in whatever form or means is a must at some point. Tuna, sardines, either mixed with mash and water - unless obvious blockage etc etc...
I have to say, if she wasn't eating and drinking you would need a vet to administer whatever by injection or orally in drops (skilled and risky) and whether you could buy it online would be academic!
Not all owners have a convenient, bird knowlahable, vet or consider it to be an economic option - especially breeders and egg producers who, for very (very) good reason, are selecting naturally healthy stock. I,Ve recently spent 10 tomes the price of a hen on stopping her laying to save her life. For a pet that's not uncommon but I'm also quite ready to agree that for a chicken it could be thought a little crazy! There's a lot of expertise here on the forum ((and not mine!) but you need to narrow down the cause, I think, especially before using antibiotics.
 
Well i would only go down the antibiotics route if it was common practice to buy online but it sounds like it is more complex than just having a generic antibiotic to treat a range of illnesses (I've never had to deal with a chicken illness before).

She had a bath this morning and her feet were curled up tight which from i can gather is a deficiency is something. We couldn't feel any egg in her vent. However we do feel a sizeable lump in her crop. It's not visible and like some huge bulging mass which other hens appear to show on examples and videos about impaction. As she is still refusing to eat and hasn't eaten much in the last couple of days I'm assuming that this lump should be digested by now so i started massaging it for a few minutes and she did suddenly bolt upright and try to drink some water from the bath so perhaps we are on the right path. There is definitely chance for them to eat long grass. I keep the garden 'natural' as it were and the hens keep most of the grass at a reasonable height but there are the odd patches about that are about a foot high. Also another hen is moulting so there are quite a few of her feathers about. We are going to syringe her some water and a bit of olive oil and massage her crop throughout the day in an attempt to get her to process it. I'll give another update later
 
Brilliant - sounds like dinosaw was spot on! Watch out for choking with the drops and any fluid from the crop. Dont know about the feet. Have they been like that for a while?
 
Yeah seems right so far, i just hope that is the reason. She has been occasionally standing on one foot and closing the foot, plus also stretching out. She seems too weak to do that now and she doesn't have the balance but I've seen the other (recently) poorly hen do the same thing when she was below par.
 
I also forgot to mention this hen has been eating her own eggs for about 2 months. When this happened previously we were able to intervene and use the false egg which did the trick but we were finding she would lay and immediately turn around and eat the egg, despite having grit, food and grassland to scratch in. Never did find a way to stop it, given that she lays whilst we are at work in the week so i wonder if this has affected her.
 
She may have been eating her nest material because it's got egg on it. Breaking the habit isn't easy. Mine got into it a bit when I had a series of soft shell problems. Getting in sync with their clock and catching them laying to remove the egg for a week or so but the soft shells were resolved and I only had some pecked ends (without breaking) until it stopped altogether.
 
Sorry to hear about your poorly hen, If she isn't any better by Monday, I would think a trip to the vet is needed. Once they begin to go downhill they often decline fast, especially if it's from some undiagnosed internal disorder, and I'm sorry to say that it's often kindest at that stage to have them put to sleep.
You definitely shouldn't ever give hens antibiotics of any sort unless prescribed by a vet, and many people feel it's not good to use them on poultry at all. As Rick says, good breeders are concerned to maintain a flock of strong and healthy birds, and will usually cull any that don't respond to the wide range of 'home remedies' available to experienced poultry keepers. I realise there may be other considerations when we're talking about much-loved pets, but I've decided that all mine will go on until I can see or sense that they're going downhill with something which is causing them to suffer, that I can't do anything about, at which point I call it a day and ensure a swift and peaceful end for them. There are many internal problems and infections which can affect a laying hen, and often very little can be done for them once they appear to be in pain.
Have a look at this link, about giving antibiotics to chickens.
http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=8760
 
I wish i could have broken like yourself but it's hard with work as that only gives us the weekend to try but it was to no avail.

Came out this morning and i thought she was dead, slumped over with her head against the wall. She was actually still breathing so as a last ditch effort we mixed her mineral booster supplement with oats and have been feeding her the liquid from that every couple of hours. She's still alive but very weak, not opening her eyes at all and will just lie so still. I don't see her lasting the night :(
 
Thanks for the link, I'm onboard with the approach of not giving the antibiotics and my query was merely speculative so thanks to all for bringing me up to speed. I don't think i have the nerve end it just yet, perhaps it's just denial but i think there is a slim chance we can save her so I'll see how tonight goes. Either way we are trying to make her as comfortable as we can.
 
I did discover that putting them on a low protein diet (i.e. not layers food but just scratch, wheat etc) stops them laying very quickly. Good for putting the breaks on till the weekend. But that isn’t going to help at this point.
If you keep trying then keep gently massaging her as it all that will help I think - but you can't know how comfortable (or not) she is and, unfortunately, its probably quite the opposite so if you think she's still heading downhill then its a trip to the vet or steeling yourself for doing the right thing. I haven’t had to do it yet - if I keep keeping chickens I will have to in an emergency sooner or later.
 
If she is still like this tomorrow then we'll take her to the vet, they can do the necessary if needs be but i would also like to know what might be wrong with her. We found out that our local practice has vet who specialises with poultry so I'm keen to know in case it was something we could have avoided
 
Sadly she passed away, she was showing more energy this morning and was willing to take the liquid feed so it was encouraging but just after lunch she died suddenly :( . Is there anything we can do or look for that will tell us what caused the death?
 
I'm sorry to hear she died, but not surprised, from the symptoms you have mentioned. The only way to be sure what was wrong would be to take her body to the vet and request an autopsy. I don't know what was wrong with your hen, but everyone who has kept a number of chickens over a period of years will have had cases like this, and there's no need to feel it was your fault - these things do happen now and then to all of us. So long as you know your birds are kept in clean conditions, regularly wormed with Flubenvet and given a sensible diet, that's all you can do, really.
Going downhill like this is, sadly, very common with chickens, they're stoical about illness and try not to show it when feeling ill because often the flock wll pick on a poorly hen at any signs of weakness and make matters worse for her. Consequently, by the time the keeper notices she isn't right, the bird is often quite badly ill. Hybrids in particular are prone to various internal problems connected with their prolific laying in their early years. Not only do thin-shelled eggs sometimes break inside the oviduct, causing infection, but because of the layout of the hen's insides, an egg can even go down the wrong way and finish up in her intestines, from where it has no way out and goes bad, causing a fatal and painful egg peritonitis.
There's most probably nothing that a caring keeper like yourself could have done to prevent her death, or to cure whatever was wrong with her. I'm glad you have a 'chicken vet' at your practice - maybe next time (yes, there will be a next time) you might consider whether to take her to the vet as soon as you notice she has a problem, as an early diagnosis may either make a cure possible, or alternatively, if the news is terminal, enable you to save her a slow and possibly painful death. Unfortunately, chickens aren't a very long- lived species, and although some go on for more than six years, especially purebreds, it's common for hybrids to give up at around 3-4 years, even if apparently perfectly healthy up until that time.
 
Sorry to hear she didn’t make it through.
I think the lump in her crop probably the best clue because if she wasn’t eating very well then there really shouldn’t have been anything much in there. Long grass is best strimmed away or fenced off (a bit or mesh just to keep them away from it if it cant be cut.) My blacktail is all too fond of long strands of stuff, straw and feathers for some reason. I try to pick up most of the feathers when moulting is going on but she gets a few - seems to have got away with it so far.
A raw egg a day, probably mixed with other stuff, wouldn’t have been good for her insides I feel but in what way exactly I don’t know. It could have been a tumour of course. Try the lower protein diet if it happens again with your others. Means separating the culprit from the flock, of course, but if they stop laying for a while then your in with a chance of intervening enough to change the habit maybe.
I like to know exactly what is happening too but to some extent have to accept that these are birds - tough, fragile (delicately balanced, primitive) and somewhat mysterious!
 
Thank you Marigold, Rick and Dinosaw for your knowledge and support has been very much appreciated. I don't think we will get any confirmed answers and we will only be able to speculate but it sounds like we were doing a lot right. However i will endeavour to keep the grass down and tackle the excessive egg eating just in case they were an issue. In hindsight i would have ended it sooner but that is a lesson for the future.

We were told when we bought the hens to expect 4-5 years but perhaps that was optimistic. They are nearly 3 years old now so at the very least she had a much better life than the majority of hens! Either way we thoroughly enjoy looking after the girls and we will consider re-homing a battery hen or an unwanted hen of a similar age.
 
Very sorry to hear she lost her battle Tuscan. As the others say, once an illness becomes advanced it is very difficult. Unfortunately I've only seen this today so it will probably be too late for you to try this, but the thing to do is to cut open the bird and the check the contents of the crop and gizzard to rule impaction in or out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top