[smee2012]

Evening all, I'm hoping to pick your collective minds if I may?

We are about a year in to chicken keeping and we've had nothing but trouble with them! We had three rescue hens (the brown ones - can't remember the breed) that we suspect are actually older than we were told by the seller. We also bought two pullets - one is a Rhode Island Rock and the other is a silver coloured Maran of some sort. We've never actually had a day when we've had 5 eggs off the lot of them, and have only been getting 1-2 eggs for the past 6 months or so.

The maran got an impacted crop in the spring, badly so, but none of our local vets would look at her because she was 'just a chicken'. We worked hard over several weeks to try to clear her but in the end one of our friends (who is a small animal vet) operated on her to remove all the impaction. She's back to twisting and 'dancing' about though so it's happened again

We had a real issue with lice this summer - but only with the rescue hens and I believe this is because they couldn't preen properly, due to their burnt beaks. Since adding a pile of DE to the pen and nest boxes, this is much better, and I haven't found a live lice on any of them (but one of the rescues still gets a mucky bum and has a few nits that I can't seem to remove).

We feed layers pellets, mixed with Verm-x pellets, plus some seaweed. However, all the hens are really thin. One of them died a few weeks ago, with no warning too. I did some research and thought perhaps they were suffering from coccidiosis so I have treated them accordingly - with Coxoid in their water - and I am now giving them tonic.

My favourite hen - one of the rescues, is still looking very poorly and I just can't work out what's wrong with her. I've been feeding her extra rations but she's listless, eyes dropping, generally looking miserable and I just don't know how to help her.

I'm thinking I ought to worm them all with an actual wormer to see if that helps but wondering if it might be a bit much for them, as they're all underweight, so soon after the Coxoid?

I regularly clean the coop and pen - the coop is disinfected (I also doused it all with Bio-Oocyst last week) and I dust all the crevices with DE. I don't think we have red mites, just the lice, but my RI Rock has been pecking herself and has a small bare patch on her chest and a little around her comb. I've been out at night to check for red mites and haven't spotted any.

Please help me to help my chickens!!

Sorry for the immensely long thread!!

[chrismahon]

Worms are the first thing to eliminate when dealing with sick chickens. The only one that can be relied on is Flubenvet so that should be your first job. The symptoms described can all be put down to a heavy worm burden, including repeated digestive impaction because the worms, if severe, can restrict the intestines. We've had impactions due to cherry stones that cleared immediately after worming.

[Marches Farmer]

Intestinal worm burden is a good fit with many of the symptoms you describe. 

[docsal]

Yes - worm them.

When mine become generally 'poorly', I supplement their feed with a daily bowl of 'pep-up' mix:
- natural, live yogurt
- grated apple
- oats
- ground up multivitamin tablet (human one)
- olive oil

Seems to work.

Also, there's good evidence that prebiotics help strengthen the immune system, so I routinely add turmeric and garlic powders to their layers pellets.

Hope they perk up.

Sally

[docsal]

Oh - and do they have a dust bath?
If they haven't made one for themselves, I put a cat litter tray in the run, with 50;50 sand and soil plus DE, so they can bath and preen themselves clean.

[Charlie1234]

Do they have access to grit ? this helps gring food + can help with prevent crop impaction.
What are their combs + wattles like ? are they pale pink or bright red ?

Could be worth worming them + maybe a few elderberries,blackberries + rowan berries as they are packed full of vitamins + minerals.

I have been talking to friends that prefer the Natural way of treating their birds and they swear by Garlic Water.

They crush a whole garlic bulb and place in a muslin cloth then place that into their 2oo litre water butt and for the last 3 years have had no illness`s or problems with mite or worms. I am now trying half of my birds with the same thing as a trial.

[smee2012]

Thanks for the replies. I have bought some Flubenvet and they've had it for the past two days. Hopefully they're not too far gone and will recover.

In answer to some of your questions:

They do have a dust bath that I keep topped up regularly with DE and all of them use it daily.
Their pen is not large (maybe 12ft by 8ft?) but they are let out daily to roam around our orchard and eat the windfall apples and the raspberries off the bushes as well as some fresh greenery.

I was using cider vinegar in their water (before I put the poultry tonic in) but might try the garlic bulb idea.

The combs on the RI Rock and the bigger rescue hen are upright and normal red colour. The combs on the maran and the sickest rescue hen are flopped over and looking more of a dull pale red colour.

They have always had access to grit (I think it's oyster shell we've got) and most of them do eat it.

I've never had chickens before - it was my husband who wanted them, I have my sheep instead - but he's not really interested in them now that they're not laying. As far as he's concerned, he'd be happy to dispatch all the sick ones and get replacements but I don't like to see animals suffering if I can possibly help them!

I've taken rather a fancy to these little hens so want to see them improve if they can.

[in the hills]

The brown ones are probably Warrens or some similar hybrid.


Are they ex battery hens?


They don't usually have long life spans and are quite 'old' once they get to 3 years. Could be that they are nearing the end of their lives.


I wouldn't expect to be having many eggs from the rescue brown hens. Hybrids lay really well for the first couple of years but egg laying soon drops off after that and often to virtually nothing.

[smee2012]

Ah yes, Warrens. That's what they are!

They were sold to us as ex-free range hens, 17mths old but I have my suspicions that they are much older than that.

They weren't in the best condition when we bought them, and in a similar condition that you'd buy ex-batts. 

[smee2012]

Well, sadly we lost my favourite hen  but the other three are looking ok. In fact we had two eggs yesterday, and we haven't had any for a week or so. I'm hoping the Flubenvet is doing its job and they'll be back up to 100% soon. I just wish I'd realised what was wrong much sooner. It's so disheartening not having any vets locally that will look at chickens. At least I'll know for next time now I suppose.

[Marches Farmer]

Reading your original post I thought I'd mention that you're very unlikely to ever get an egg a day from each of your chickens. Hens have all their egg potential on board at birth and the Warren types will lay their socks off for around 18 months and be sold when they first moult or once the eggshells start to thin too much for packing, as |it's not worth the farmer's time and money to feed a non-productive bird.  Many birds will be moulting at this time of year and may not come back into lay for several months or even, in the case of very old birds, until Spring.