Poorly hen with yellowish comb/wattles

[Pony Girl]

Can anyone help? Flo (our 2 and a half year old pekin bantam) is very lethargic, and her comb and wattles have a pale yellowish tinge. She is eating but is very listless and shakes her head a lot and sometimes sneezes a few times. Crop does not always seem completely empty the next morning (impacted crop? but she's had the thing with her crop for a while and has always had a healthy appetite so I don't think it's that).

They were wormed with Flubenvet three weeks ago and I have treated the house for red mite and put louse powder on everyone. She did a poo yesterday that looked very slightly greenish and a bit more watery than usual but other poos since then have looked OK.

Does anyone know what it could be? Should I isolate her from the others?

 

[chrismahon]

Are they free ranging Pony Girl ? Is she laying ? Seems like something is running her down and she needs a bit of a tonic. Could try 1 mL cod liver oil down the back of the throat with a syringe (front is the airway). I would have said red mite with a pale comb, but you are ahead of me there. Then I would have said worms but you beat me on that one as well. I would say the unusual poo isn't. Has she access to grit? Has she lost weight? Is she still talking?

 

[Marigold]

I think, with her symptoms, epecially the head shaking and sneezing, if she were mine I'd get her to a vet. If she has a broncial infection it could spread to the others, but could probably be treated with antibiotics.

 

[Pony Girl]

Thanks both. Husband took her to vet on Monday who confirmed comb is pale but not yellowish as I thought. She said she’s showing respiratory problems, infection and possible impaction in crop. Been given course of antibiotics and advised to separate from others and hand feed very runny mash, not hard grain, and give fluids and to keep eye on crop. Unfortunately she has really deteriorated and not eating at all now, producing brown liquid poo and crop feels very full so back to the vet's today but not looking good. Poor little girl.

 

[lacy blues]

Pony Girl, this is what I do for an impacted crop/crop bound bird...

About a tablespoon of olive oil, you could use cod liver oil if you have it on hand, and it always surprises me when the bird willingly drinks all of this. Anyway, after drinking it all, I massage the crop and break up whatever is impacted in there. You can feel it when you find it. You have to work at it for a while and your hand will probably get tired but once all the knots are worked out of it, she should digest it fairly quickly.

First off, bring her in and keep her warm. To get her to eat, try a hard boiled egg yolk. Or if she will only drink, you might try mixing some powder from a protein drink, health mix? I don't know what you call it over there but in the USA it's just called a protein drink. Its a powder that you mix into fruit juice or water, whichever you prefer, to make a good breakfast drink. I did this with my chicken just last week. Also, alfalfa stimulates the appetite so I made an alfalfa tea with a teaspoon (or 1 ml) dried alfalfa leaves and 2 cups water or 1/2 liter. Let them steep for about 20 min or so and allow to cool. I used half water and half alfalfa tea for her protein drink, only mixing up about 1/2 cup at a time (lets see... that would be 8 tablespoons, so about 24 ml?) I also used a lot of yogurt - plain and unsweetened, about 1 Tablespoon or 3 ml morning and night. Cheese helps slow down the diarrhea as do blueberries, if you can get her to try them, she'll love them. I serve them still frozen but cut up, that way they see the lighter inside color and are more willing to try them.

And just for info, blueberries are high in natural aspirin as well and work great if your bird seems to be in pain... about a tablespoon of these works well.

Keep us posted as to how she is doing.

 

[Pony Girl]

Sadly Flo was put to sleep this morning.

The vet carried out a Post Mortem: No sign of worms or liver problems.The contents of her crop was very bad; rotting food that's been there for some time. Stomach was empty so nothing was passing through. However she also said that the crop problem was probably a secondary factor to an underling virus.