Hi All,
A newbie to chicken owning here (although I did post a while back for advice on refurbishing our hen house) so please be gentle. I've read the recent "Sick Chickens" thread which was very helpful but our symptoms are a little different (birds laying like crazy but every few days a different bird will look under the weather for a few days before recovering) so here goes.
We've got ten pullets, 2 each of Light Sussex, Bluebells, Black Rock, Speckledies and Cream Legbar all bought at the same time at PoL a couple of months ago. Probably at least a couple more than we need but Mrs K wanted two of each kind and wanted to avoid the stress of adding to the flock later.
The girls are housed in a 5'x4'x5' house up on stilts with an external nest box which was treated with old school creosote a couple of months before they arrived and the smell had disappeared. The roof is now black corrugated coralline rather than felt. Their feeder and water is in a 6'x5'x4' pen made of heavy 2" mesh all round including the floor which is covered by 3-4" mixture of soil, well rotted compost, sawdust and hay.
Bedding in house (cardboard, shavings, sawdust and hay) changed every 7-10 days and it's given a spray with disinfectant and the outside pen substrate has been changed once. They make their own dust baths but I'll give them a tray with sand in.
During the day, they also have the run of a section of a paddock fenced off with about 25m of chicken wire which is varied and when I sort some other fencing out, they will have the run of the whole paddock subject to the recent half hearted assault by a juvenile buzzard not being repeated - run area now festooned with old cds on bright yellow baler twine.
Fed on layers pellets and the water has a dash of cider vinegar but otherwise no other supplements, medications or treatments. Rodents have visited to pick up stray pellets but they are fed from a treadle feeder so feed unlikely to be contaminated.
After some initial squabbling while they sorted out a pecking order, they are all behaving themselves, producing 5-8 eggs a day and seem pretty contented. The only issue is that every now and again one or other of the birds (currently a legbar) looks thoroughly miserable for a few days (eyes closed, head down, feathers puffed up and not showing much interest in food or drink), but then they perk up and all seems well again. There have been a few khaki squirty droppings but I put that down to the recent addition of grass and occasional broccoli head to their diet.
We bought the pullets from a reputable dealer who would have been happy to sell us red-mite and worming treatments but advised that these were not needed yet for such young birds. No added grit so far.
We gave the legbar a (non-expert) check-over this morning no obvious signs of issues with the crop, vent or external parasites and I think it was laid today but still looks miserable. We've got a copy of Terry Bebe's Healthy Hens book which seems to suggest that worms is the most likely cause and that layers pellets with added flubendazole should be the starting point.
Sorry for the long post but I thought it best to cover all the variables. We will probably add a few of the organic supplements (blackberries and garlic?) and try the worming remedy.
Any other thoughts please, so far all the girls that have looked unwell seem to have shaken it off after a few days but I'm keen to get a better understanding of whether there is something else we should be doing or not doing?
Many thanks!