Rural Gardening: Comb and face is really dark on chicken., 1 by smedgekles

smedgekles wrote:
We have an 8+ pound chicken that has been acting sickly. Tail down, just sits. She did get a gash on her side from the roosters spurs, but not enough of a gash to really cause the way she is acting. We think she has a broken egg in her because of what she poops. Same as the other chicken we had with the broken egg. Lots of yellowish egg looking stuff. She is big and never gets off the roost herself, we always take her down. We think maybe she jumped down and hurt her leg (she limps) as well as broke an egg in her. She eats very little but she does drink. We have also given her some milk which she seems to enjoy. Her comb and face though is very dark, almost a maroon color. The picture actually looks lighter to me than it really is. I always thought the comb and face gets pale if they are sickly. What causes it to be so dark?