Sudden lameness, obvious distress

[Sarahh_Janeyy]

Yesterday morning I found my 3.5 year old hen on the bottom of the coop. When I looked at the camera footage, I saw she had been there since 3 or 4 am. I brought her inside. I was able to bring her to the vet in the morning, where she suddenly decided to stand, much to my surprise. Her air sacs were clear, no parasites in her fecal, yeast was low, and she otherwise has been very healthy. Her last illness was about 4 or 5 months ago- she had a thin shelled egg crush and get stuck to her oviduct and it took about 2 months for her to fully pass it. Prior to this she had an issue with getting very dehydrated after going broody. The vet thought she was leaning to her left side and keeping weight off her right side, so he suspected injury. He gave her fluids and a shot of meloxicam. After getting home, she started to act more normal again. I was afraid she might have been in pain- hence her distress. But a few hours later, she laid an egg. It was thin shelled and small. But I was very surprised she laid given that she hadn't in months. My gut says these two things are related. This morning, I gave her the meloxicam, and she was fine literally all day until around 4pm. Suddenly she was down again, barely able to move, and panting. She has another appointment with the vet tomorrow, but I'm very worried about her. Does any one have any ideas? She doesn't act like her feet or legs are bothering her at all - the vet moved them all around and she didn't get upset about it. It's so hard to sit here and watch her and not be able to do anything to help. We did tube feed her liquid food and vitamins, and she picked at some mealworms.

 

[Sarahh_Janeyy]

I walked out of the room and when I came back I saw this (Hennifer is the barred rock and Pepper is the splash Ameraucana):

It's been a while since Pepper jumped up like that, I assume Hennifer just followed her.

 

[Sarahh_Janeyy]

Update: I am convinced this is an egg/reproductive issue, perhaps with the shell gland as @Eggcessive suggested. She just got up and walked into the corner to brace herself and pushed out another extremely thin-shelled, bordering on no shell, egg.

 

[Sarahh_Janeyy]

Enrofloxacin is banned in poultry by the FDA, although some vets will prescribe it for reproductive disorders. If that bothers you, you may not want to use it. It is not banned for dogs or cats however, just chickens. The similar antibiotic cipro is used in people.

It doesn't bother me, we're not going to ever eat her eggs again at this point. I imagine it bothers him as he's only ever prescribed sulfatrim and has said he is limited in what he can prescribe for chickens, knowing that we have had 2 (now passed) chickens with severe infections. One ended up having a ruptured oviduct, and the other was the immunocompromised one I mentioned already. I am going to ask him about it, of course, and we did order the enrofloxacin from jedd's though it won't be here until Friday. Pepper has an appointment tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon. Btw, I don't know if I mentioned but she is drinking on her own (or if I put water in front of her) and she is eating the moving prey items. She ate 100 live crickets yesterday and is eating the live mealworms this morning. Doesn't seem interested in any of the normal pellet or scratch foods, however.

 

[Sarahh_Janeyy]

Sorry that she is not doing better. It sounds like she has a pretty serious problem, most likely salpingitis, that she won’t recover from. I usually give it a good try to nurse them back to health, but at some point, I let them decide if they wish to eat and drink, or not. I have used my dog’s probiotics (Purina PoPlan) on chickens. Your vet probably sell those, and Probios powder is sold at most feed stores. Your vet bills must be huge. Let us know if she gets better or worsens.

Lol, you have no idea.. It's a good thing we don't have kids...
Yeah, I have been worried she won't recover, but doing our best anyway. We have 2 different avian-specific ones, he said they both have a bunch of probiotics that aren't avian-specific in there, he'd probably say the same about the dog and cat ones.

 

[Sarahh_Janeyy]

Sooo, noticed that one of our other hens, Hennifer, was breathing heavier than usual/the other birds when at rest. She had been sitting on my lap the last few days, slightly unusual for her. So I brought her to the vet on Friday when we were getting Pepper her fluids. Turns out Hennifer is having a respiratory issue and the vet was glad I brought her in. Now both girls are on Tylosin and Hennifer is Pepper's emotional support friend. I really hope the Tylosin helps.. They both were eating together yesterday and I was so happy I cried. Still worried about them, but that was encouraging. Hennifer has fluid sounds in her air sacs and "pulmonary crackling". Pepper also had the beginnings of the crackling sound. So maybe Pepper has been dealing with two things..

 

[Eggcessive]

If they have had symptoms for awhile the testing could be negative, but hope you will get an answer. It is good to know what you are dealing with.

 

[Eggcessive]

Update: Pepper did in fact backslide taking her off the anti-inflammatories and antibiotic. She started to get diarrhea and dehydrated again and stopped laying, so we put her back on it. She's back to laying eggs. I hope she doesn't have to be on this forever, but..

I think a hormone implant would really help both of these girls, but can't get that here.
https://poultrydvm.com/drugs/deslorelin
I was reading the cases on Poultry DVM and I'm wondering how people got vets to do this. My vet said it's illegal, as per FDA because chickens are "food animals" so his hands are tied. Wondering if anyone else has had any luck getting implants done (legally) with a waiver or special program or something like that?

Vet said regardless we would be treating whatever is causing her diarrhea/dehydration and she's been responding to those medications so that's the best course of action anyway.
As for Hennifer, he had less good news for me there, and just keep her on the medicine since she's also seemed to improve, but may never get better. I really wish I could get her an implant so I don't have to be concerned over whether or not she's still pumping egg yolks into her coelom and making her peritonitis worse

I would ask a question about where to find a hormone implant for your hen in northern FL or southern GA. Someone might reply or PM you.

 

[Chicken_tiger_catt]

vitamin issue?

 

[Eggcessive]

I would give her some human calcium citrate with vitamin d straight into her beak to swallow. Give Tums or other calcium until you get that. One tablet daily for the next few days would be good. She sounds like she is having trouble laying, and thin shelled eggs can easily break inside or cause egg binding. Keep her in a warm humid place such as a bathroom on a warm towel. Do not bathe her. Will she drink fluids on her own? Let us know how she is doing in the am.