One of our girls is sick :(

I talked to my boyfriend last night and he told me one of our oldest girls seems to be sick.
She comes out of the coop, but when they are being fed, she just stands in the backround quietly, and doesn't go for any food. Our chickens are little piglets!!, so that is very strange to see.
When he let them out to run around and catch bugs and eat grass, he said she just stood there.
He said last night was day 2 of her not moving around much and not going after any food :(

This message was edited Jun 20, 2009 12:49 PM

Uh Oh... doesn't sound good.. I hope she is okay. :(

Could she be egg bound--or is she not laying yet?

I had one that behaved the same way--I was sure she was egg bound--but after doing the appropriate examination--she wasn't.

She recovered after a few days and was perfectly fine. Sometimes they just don't feel good.

i just had one like that too..it was one of my little ones..she was all snuggly for two days, now she is back to being her old ignoring self..i guess we all have those days..
hope she feels better soon..


cindy

I hope she's not egg bound. She can lay a whopper of an egg. Big brown ones. Sometimes we have to use the jumbo egg cartons for them.
I'm waiting for him to come on line on messenger to find out how she is doing before I head off to work again.

Could be egg bound or could have eaten something that upset her system.
Try giving her some oats. When we have some sickly ones we feed them oats. They will eat that over anything else. I read somewhere that oats has something good for them when they are ill. But I don't remember where I read that.
Hope she will be okay.
We had one act sickly for a while and then snapped out of it.

Hi Kassi! I hope she snaps out of it, Might try some cottage cheese, or oatmeal made into mush with some milk in it. Good luck Haystack

Well as of last night she was still with us.
You mean other people feed their chickens people food too? Ours love it!
We lost one of the sisters to this one last year. I have a feeling that the sister had heat stroke. Can you give me the signs of heat stroke in a chicken?
I called her my nursing home chicken :) Bet you can't tell what I do for a living............LOL

Heat stroke would cause panting, not eating etc. and also can cause neon green poop which means there is a lot of bile from stress. You can give her a cool bath if you think it is heat stroke. Cool baths can pull a chicken out of heat stroke, just make sure it isn't too cool, just about the chickens body temp.

It has been unbearably hot and humid here. I go give the chickens fresh cool water during the day sometimes and make sure they have pleanty of shade. I don't think we even have a breeze today.

No, I know this one doesn't have heat stroke. Just wondering about the signs of it as we lost one to what was either heat stroke or a stroke. Although we did have her for a year of more as my nursing home chicken.

You said give them a cool bath close to body temp.. what exactly is a chickens body temp?

Maybe the heat is why mine keep playing in the garden hose when I'm watering the grass. They like to run thru it then fluff their feathers.

A chickens body temp is about 103 degrees.
Chickens can die when temps get above 95 degrees because they can't cool their bodies fast enough. They are really in danger when temps get above 100.

Our temp here is suppose to be getting to 100 with heat index of 104 to 107 in the next few days. We may be using the sprinkler on ours.

Thanks. Our weather is suppose to be nearly that warm here this week.

Yes, I saw that on the news this morning that the high is all the way up into MO causing high heat. I have in-laws near Jeff City. It sure is miserable when it is that hot and here it is dry dry dry.

She died :(

So sorry to hear it.

Kassy!!! I'm so sorry to hear about your girl. I feel so sad:-( for you. About one month ago I had a little girl I had hand raised. I just loved her. She laid her first egg and died in my arms later that evening. I know how you feel and Want you to know we all feel for you. Haystack

Thank you Haystack and everone.

Oh no, I'm so sorry. It is not easy loosing them but you can take comfort in knowing you did what you could and she was loved.

I try to take care of them. At times I feel like I have to protect them from my boyfriend and he has full custody of them............A horror story to be told in a few days.

He has grape vines, and the girls and guys love them. I go picking grapes for them. And I pick currents for them too :)

The mulberries and the black raspberries I don't tend to share with them as much. But those they do pick on their own alot.

It sounds like you took good care of them. There are many chickens out there that don't get anywhere close to the love that we all give ours. When we loose one It helps to know that we loved them and they felt it in their own chicken ways. At least they don't die in a 2X2 cage where they never see the light of day or a berry much less the love of a human. Take care, we are here for ya.

I'm so sorry you lost her. Take care.

I'm sorry for your loss too Kassy. I know it's hard. My heart goes out to ya.