Hen is acting strangely/won’t eat or run with the others.

[Jayla Warren]

Several years ago I had a hen called Betty that I dearly loved. When she was about 3-4 years old, she began to act strangely. She would make weird motions with her neck and seemed to have a lump right at the base of her neck in the back but there was nothing there. She wouldn’t drink much, and she refused to eat any feed at all, even though she seemed hungry. I researched and was advised to give her yogurt, and to buy her certain vitamins, which I did. However apparently I had waited too long because it didn’t work. She grew lethargic and eventually lost her sense of balance, and then she died. Last winter I bought a new flock of chickens and all were healthy, but recently one hen, again my favourite, has begun to act just like Betty did before she died. She won’t eat or drink, and I began to give her vitamins right away but she is only getting worse. Now she won’t run with the other hens and just stands by herself and sometimes makes weird motions with her neck. She also has the thing that appears to be a lump but when I feel it there isn’t anything. She is getting worse and I’m afraid that soon it will be too late for her too.

 

[AidKD]

Can you get some pictures and maybe a video of her doing it?

 

[Jayla Warren]

Can you get some pictures and maybe a video of her doing it?

I’ve tried several times, but each time I go out there with a camera, I wait and she doesn’t do it. It’s only at select times. Most of the time she just lays around or stands there.

 

[AidKD]

I’ve tried several times, but each time I go out there with a camera, I wait and she doesn’t do it. It’s only at select times. Most of the time she just lays around or stands there.

Maybe just a plain picture of her then? Can you describe what the neck twisting is like, please?

 

[Jayla Warren]

She will twist it to one side abruptly, then down and back, or up and back, or then to the other side. It has no real pattern.

 

[AidKD]

What are you feeding? Where did she come from and what is her history? Are her eyes cloudy at all? How does she sit there? For example, is she back on her hocks with her feet off the ground? Alot of questions, sorry!