The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: lurkylurchers on January 22, 2009, 08:46:08 pm

Title: odd chicken behaviour
Post by: lurkylurchers on January 22, 2009, 08:46:08 pm
Hi everyone. I am new to this website and hope some one may be able to help with some advice. We have 2 bantam hens with one bantam cock. All are less than a year old. Recently one of the hens has started to tilt forward and be unstable on her feet. She has started laying an egg a day approx about 3weeks ago. She only starts this tipping forwards when she has been outsidefor about 2/3 of the day. The birds are normally out all day from 8.00 till 4.00pm.The hen is always recovered by the morning and in fine fettle. Today she has been kept in as yesterday she looked a little worse and this morning wasn"t much better.Yesterday she was also opening her beak, closing her eyes and breathing quite hard and actually had fallen onto her head with her bottom in the air. the other birds are well. All three birds look in good condition physically. These are not my birds but are kept where I work and i am very concerned for their welfare. Hoping some one can help.
Title: Re: odd chicken behaviour
Post by: MrRee on January 22, 2009, 10:21:24 pm
I'm no expert,but my best guess would be worms....... Ree
Title: Re: odd chicken behaviour
Post by: northfifeduckling on January 22, 2009, 10:29:24 pm
I know hens are not ducks, but I assume the symptoms of our feathered friends are similar (prove me wrong if anyone knows differently!).
I found this link very helpful, a good description of diseases

http://www.liveducks.com/health.html

Title: Re: odd chicken behaviour
Post by: lurkylurchers on January 26, 2009, 08:29:30 pm
Hi guys, thanks for your replies. Seems to be a bit of a mystery. The hen breeder doesn't know what it is, nor does the vet and so we keep trying stuff.   We will see how she goes.
Title: Re: odd chicken behaviour
Post by: garden cottage on January 26, 2009, 09:09:49 pm
 Re: chicken can't walk! help!
Reply #3 - 11/25/08 at 13:26:29   I don't want to be the bearer of bad news as your hens symptoms might not be exactly like mine, but I had a cuckoo marans hen that went off her legs over the course of a week. In the end she wasn't eating hardly anything and the weight dropped off her very quickly.  I took her to the vet and he said she probably had avian tuberculosis.  He said there wasn't a definite test for it and there also isn't a cure.  He advised me to end it for her as she would just get worse.

She displayed similar symptoms to yours and seemed to be falling or rocking backwards, sometimes she would topple over and catch herself by putting her wing out.  After about 3 days she couldn't hold onto the perch and took to sleeping in the nest box.  She was moulting at the time so I mistakenly thought she was fluffed up and grumpy because of that.

The vet said that it usually presents at around a year old.

Hope it's an ear infection instead of this.  FOUND THIS ON ANOTHER FORUM...............NEIL