4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[GillC]

Sorry about miserable title. Just wanted some feedback from other owners who had had similar experience to maybe help understand what happened.

 

Yesterday morning flock of 4 hens - Saffy and Patsy aged 16 months, Nutmet aged 8 months and Amber aged 6 months, happy as normal, running around, pecking, eating, drinking. All had been delivering eggs 6 days out of 7.

 

5:30pm yesterday evening Saffy was clamped to the nest box on 3 eggs. My first thought was broody hen but when I lifted her off and put her on the ground she fell over to the right. She wasn't using her right foot.

 

It looked a little grubby so my first thought was bumble foot. I got my son to hold her whilst I gently washed both feet - there was quite a hard piece of leaf on the pad of the right foot. But when I looked carefully there were no marks, cuts or abrasions. She was very quiet and sleepy seeming. She would grasp my finger with her left foot quite strongly, but her right foot seemed weaker. I dried her off, antiseptic'd both legs and put her back on a clean nestbox.

 

When I put her back she stood on both legs for a while so I thought that maybe the problem was the hard piece of leaf and she'd feel better after a good night's sleep.

 

I did go back to check on her ten minutes later and she was hunkered down seemingly asleep. I stroked her and talked to her and she turned her head around to look at me, but was definitely not really that responsive.

 

This morning she was dead.

 

It's very sad, but seems to have been mercifully quick. The other three are running around as usual.

 

Has anyone else experienced something like this? Do chickens get strokes? I'm wondering if I was completely wrong about the leg and should have looked further. Any advice or thoughts would be much welcomed. It's quite a shock.

[Egluntyne]

Welcome to the forum. Sorry your first post is a sad one.

 

They can keel over unexpectedly from a stroke.

 

One of mine did just that recently and had to be sent on its way by the vet.

[Mel (& Paul)]

Oh poor you - what a shame It certainly sounds like a stroke - chicken certainly can have strokes and we lost one of our girls that way.

As you said at least it was quick for her so she didnt suffer.

Lots of hugs and sympathy from here

xx

[theherd123]

Im so sorry to read about your loss.

 

What a shock esp when you did everything right in terms of checking her over, bathing her legs etc

[Seagazer]

Firstly welcome to the forum. I'm so sorry about Saffy, thats so sad.

[The Dogmother]

Welcome to the forum, but sorry to hear your sad news.

 

Could have been a stroke, but might have been Marek's

 

Just keep an eye on the others.

[GillC]

Many thanks for all the replies and sympathy. My remaining three seem as lively and bouncing as usual, but I'll keep a close eye on them having looked up Mareks on the internet.

 

Patsy and Saffy were my first two gingernut rangers, but have always looked a bit, well, small and scruffy compared to the buxom gingers of my two eglu-owning friends, and to my Amber Star and Nera. Maybe they're from a weak clutch.

 

It seems silly to get so attached to a bird, but as has been pointed out, she didn't suffer and died with really clean legs. In fact, she seemed to really enjoy having her legs washed in warm water. Maybe I'll try it with the others.

[The Dogmother]

Glad to hear the others are OK Gill, I posted a while ago about the demise of my Jude from Mareks http://club.omlet.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=31871 there's quite a bit of information about it in that thread. The others may appear a bit poorly but not actually get any worse.

 

The end when it happens is quite sudden.

[Helen&Lee]

Sorry to hear about your chook.