sick chicken

[campanula]

I had 4 chickens in February when one got ill. I took her home, put her in a quiet and warm place and after a couple of days she seemed OK. However, she never fully recovered. She used to skulk in a corner, never mixing with the other birds, getting weaker until we had to kill her last week . Our vet in an expensive cjicken ignoramus and not really an option, even if we could afford it.  Anyway, another one is now acting the same. Very worried.

[goodlife]

Ok...how's they droppings looking? Have you got anything like poultry drink to add into they water?..if not disolve 1 tsp of glucose powder into their drinking water..is there been any sneezing or anything else unusual going on?
As soon as you see any of them looking sad try to get into them some extra food & water.
I usually make warm wet mash..with added treats to get them interested of food..eg. peas and/or sweetcorn..if you don't have any mash handy just make it with your normal pellets...cup of treats from freezer ..hot water from kettle...some pellets to soak..few drops of cod liver oil or poultry drink or any other vitamin supplement..wait untill not too hot anymore and let them gobble it up...some times if they are feeling under weather they find eating and drinking too much of an efford or others don't let them ....so tempting luxury meal will get even the poorly one eating..if she does perk up after that..keep going on for several days with mash..
Just try to get them to eat boring pellets after that...
Are they up to date with worming?

[campanula]

hi goodlife

thanks for chicken response - it is extremely worrying for us,as novices, that it is such a DIY culture. Our vet - ha! - is unhelpful and expensive. Anyway, a breakthrough! I e.mailed a local chap who has a site called Jessie's hens, lives just up the road from me too. Told us to bring all three hens and he would check them over, tell us how old they are and what to look for etc. I am sure you can imagine what a massive relief this is. despite much reading, experience is the only real teacher and, unlike with either plants (when it really isn't tragic if the tomatoes cark it) or pets - when the vets are much more likely (for a price) to be helpful - after all, you are not really expected to wring your sick dogs neck, chickens are little live things which deserve humane and informed treatment rather than vague guesswork. Anyhow, to answer, dropping are fine, no difficulty in breathing, tail still up but just skulking away from others and not bothering to eat the offered slaters  (they usually go mad for worms and pillbugs and so on). She is not really looking too bad but her bahviour is so similar to our last chook which was a long and slow descent into malaise - certainly not the two or three days we had read was most likely. Poor girl got slower and slower, weedier and weedier till she was barely able to stand and then started twitching her neck, wouldn't leave the coup - horrible to see so we are naturally concerned. Will let you know. There seems to be a lot of sick chickens about...or maybe just a lot of anxious novices.

[goodlife]

The problem often is that they do not have to have anything majorly wrong with them...just off day..and others will notice this and will not let the "weak" one alone or eat and drink normally..they will put the sad one bottom of the pecking order..now if the sad one is not able to get full nourishment they will soon go off lay and get even weaker untill there is no return..thats why it is so important to get energy down to them as soon as possible and in regurlar pace...if it is "off day" then with change with feeding will make very quick impact.
I had one that did go weak very sudden...I took the girl off from pen and sat it on my lap..forced some water&glucose mix down with syringe..by opening the beak...did this every couple of ours in first day and next day it was happily drinking it herself from beaker and was pecking some seeds off from cup too..while still sitting on my lap ..I always returned her back to pen after drink and feed..few days and she was back to normal and other chickens let her be too..

[worldor]

Maybe sour crop caused by not having enough grit in their diet. The symptoms sound right. Loads of info on net. You need to turn the head down and massage the crop if it is sour crop nasty looking watery stuff will come from their mouth. It may take a few days to clear so just keep them quiet and give epsom salts solution via a syringe into their mouth and feed with live yogurt or a product like actimel. Prevented by having constant access to poultry grit.