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.
