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How should you triage/treat a sick chicken?

 
Steward of piddlers
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I've been fortunate as a newer chicken keeper to not have run into many issues tending my flock but after three years I have a pitiful hen who needs some tender loving care.

This is going to be my first time treating a chicken, besides treating a chick with pasty butt, and am looking for some guidance on how to general treat a sick chicken as we figure out what is the cause of her illness.

As first steps, I have separated her from the flock. She was getting roughed up by a couple of hens and was acting sluggish. I decided to bring her inside to keep her warm and I can better control the cleanliness of her surroundings. I have provided her clean drinking water, food and a diced up boiled egg to get her to eat.

Currently, she is acting lethargic and has yellow runny poops.

Thank you for any guidance you can provide.
 
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what's worked well for my daughter's chickens is to separate the sick ones from the flock, keep there butts clean, add electrolytes, vitamins to her water, make sure plenty of fresh water to them hydrated, supplement her food with some cooked egg. peace & quiet helps too. good luck, some times they just don't make it, but give them a fighting chance
 
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It sounds to me that you are doing the best option for the chicken.

Keep it quiet, in a peacefu7ll setting and give it food and water.

I hope things work out for you.

 
Timothy Norton
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We did a warm soak due to some crud buildup on her tail feathers followed by a blow dry. She has not moved an awful lot but is still defecating so I'm not so concerned about her being impacted. Her crop did not seem to be a problem. She has protested a little bit when I handled her but hasn't freaked out trying to fight me.

I'm thinking about doing an at-home fecal float test to inspect for parasite eggs and/or a fecal smear test. I need to figure out a float solution (The specific gravity is important) but I should have everything else I need to do the test. Troubleshooting a cause of illness is going to be very new for me so we are shooting from the hip currently.
 
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A few years back I had my chickens in a greenhouse for the winter, and I did not have enough ventilation. I had 1 chicken die from what appeared to be some sort of respiratory problem. Others were showing symptoms. I didn't have time or money to do much for tests, but I gave them oregano for their immune system, yogurt for some probiotics, and some apple cider vinegar with honey in their water for a few days for electrolytes and energy. I also fixed the ventilation. All recovered and returned to health.

The ventilation obviously helped, but several of them were severe enough I think they needed the extra boost from the other supplements.

Oregano, ACV, yogurt won't hurt anything... and they might help with healing.
 
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If it's some sort of digestive issue, it might be worth a try to get her to eat a bit of crushed charcoal. You might need to mix it into something tastier.

Otherwise, for whatever it's worth... The only time I've (possibly) cured a chicken of anything was years ago when my parents kept a few. One of the hens died from some sort of infectious disease, with symptoms a bit like flu - sneezing, unwillingness to eat or move, some mucus-ish looking stuff leaking from the beak, etc. Then shortly after, another one caught it and it got worse quite quickly. I thought I might as well try something, and fed the chicken a strong decoction of Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium) roots, which contains berberine. She recovered shortly after.

In all honesty, I have no idea if what I did made the difference. Maybe she'd have recovered regardless. Since we had no way of knowing what the actual disease was, and it only killed one chicken, maybe it wasn't generally lethal. Two is a very small sample size. At least, the experiment indicates that Oregon grape isn't immediately lethal to chickens...
 
Timothy Norton
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A few updates.

She is still alive! She is still lethargic and not moving a whole lot, but she transitions from standing during the day to sitting down at night to rest. I have observed her eat and drink so that is great. No respiratory related issues which is another good sign in my book.

I'm struggling to collect enough fecal material to be able to properly do a fecal float test. It is very runny and more liquid than anything else. I'm planning on putting a small tray under her and seeing if we can catch enough. If it is worms, I'm not exactly sure how I will approach it but I know there are options out there. I have not observed any other signs of worms in the rest of the flock so I'm not convinced that it may be that but who knows?

I have read that a warm Epson salt soak may be beneficial. I plan on doing a good soak tonight to see if it helps. I view it as a low risk activity so we will give it another try.

I also dug up an electric heater I had in storage and plugged it in to provide a little bit of warmth.
 
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It sounds like you're doing a great job with her, Timothy. The fact that she gets back up on her feet during the day, and is eating is a good thing. I wish I had words to guide you, but I'm pretty sure you've got this at least a week as I would. That fecal test is a strep in the right direction. Do you have a microscope? Being able to do your own fecals can be a huge non to any livestock health management plan. It saves a lot of time and vet $$$ - and livestock. I don't have one, myself, but it's on my list.
 
Timothy Norton
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Carla Burke wrote:Do you have a microscope? Being able to do your own fecals can be a huge non to any livestock health management plan. It saves a lot of time and vet $$$ - and livestock. I don't have one, myself, but it's on my list.



I fortunately do have a microscope, my wife bought it for me as a birthday present! During one of my ramblings, she must of heard me talking about all of the things I would want to do if I only had one. It is now starting to put it to use.

I have found out that there are a lot of veterinary medicine training how-to/videos online which helps learn the process. The only thing I have left to do is gather a couple more needed ingredients to make the appropriate slides.

Depending on what the future holds, I will try to document my process if I get to the microscopy part.
 
Timothy Norton
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MITES!!!


This poor hen is covered in mites. I don't know how I did not notice with the first soak but this soak I made a point to gently push her down in the water up to her neck and it looked like there was a ton of pepper flakes in the water. I'm confident that she has a bad infestation of Northern Fowl Mites (Ornithonyssus sylviarum). If she has mites, the rest of the flock can reasonably be assumed to have mites. I just changed out the deep bedding in this coop, but I'm going to do a thorough cleaning/treating of their coop in the coming week if not this weekend depending on weather.

From what I am reading, diatomaceous earth or sulfur powder look to be effective treatments.

If anyone has treated a mite infestation before, I'd take any advice you may have.
 
Carla Burke
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Well done, figuring it out, Timothy!! I personally (&maybe miraculously) haven't had that issue, but you're doing/ planning to do all the steps generally recommended, that I know of. The only thing I can think of that might add to it is to ramp up their mineral & protein intake for a bit, to help them physically recover more quickly, before winter sets in.
 
Timothy Norton
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Unfortunately, my dear Betty passed away in the middle of the night.



We will treat the rest of the flock and hopefully prevent a future reoccurance.

I'm bummed, but that is life with livestock.
 
Carla Burke
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I'm so sorry, Timothy... as prey animals, they do their level best to hide any weakness, because it makes them more vulnerable to predators. Some of them are instinctively VERY adept, which makes our job (keeping them healthy and alive) much more difficult. I've lost far too many livestock, over it, so I understand. Hugs...
 
J. Syme
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we have 50lbs bags of diatomaceous earth available at the local farm/feed store. i put a 20" diameter dust bath bucket that's only 5" high and mix it 50:50 with dirt/diatomaceous earth. the hens like to dust bath in the bucket and it keeps our mites in control.
 
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