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

[Toots]

My chicken appears to be ill!

 

She is 20 weeks and has not started laying yet so i cant tell if the egg production has slowed. She is eating well. Loving her treats especially sweey corn and mealworms.

 

however she does spend a lot of time looking like she is "nodding" off. She will sit in the middle of the garden, eyes closed, beak open. her head drops half an inch, then jerks back to its original position. if i call her for food she perks up and comes flapping over!

 

As I have 3 it is hard to spot which her droppings are but all the ones in the eglu from over night look normal.

 

Please help!

[Gamebird]

If she is otherwise bright and eating and drinking I wouldn't worry too much.

 

Her body is probably changing and working it's way to egg laying which can be quite tiring. A bit like a teenage who spends all morning in bed.

 

Keep an eye on her.

[Falkor]

She sounds like my 25 year old brother - half asleep unless there is food on offer and then he is surprisingly perky!!

 

Keep an eye on her and I hope she is just being a lazy chicken!

[SnowWhite]

Mine will doze like this from about midday onwards! They are just morning people If she's healthy and eating well, no signs of worms or parasites then do not worry. Don't feed to many treats, (easier said than done I know) and make sure she gets good quality layers mash/pellets. Just keep an eye on her and you'll soon get used to her normal behaviour and spot when she is ill.

[Toots]

unfortunatly she passed away last night

I don't know what it was, my other 2 are looking fine and healthy but i am going to does them with wormer etc and sterilize the eglu just incase.

[sandyhas3chucks]

oh dear , sorry to hear that

[Chickvic]

Sorry to hear about your chicken Hope the other girls are ok.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Sorry to hear about your poor chicken, Toots . She must have been pretty unwell .

 

Just some advice, if you're going to worm them and haven't bought the wormer yet, most people on the forum swear by Flubenvet rather than Vermex.

[Mrs AVP]

Im sorry to hear that.

 

Did you get your hen from Omlet as mine had similar problem and had to be put to sleep yesterday the vet thinks she had a disease!!!

 

She was about the same age as yours.

[Griffin]

I didn't want to post yesterday but I recently lost a chicken with similar symptoms Catherine was about 22 weeks old, had only been here a month but just had never been right. She nodded her head very slowly, as if she was literally nodding off to sleep then she'd jerk it up again. She didn't grow or gain weight like the others I bought at the same time and basically just wasted away. She was vaccinated, wormed, fed good quality food, I gave her the best of everything but it wasn't enough. I've no idea why she died, all the others are fine, but when I read your post it just made alarm bells ring. But what could I say when I didn't know what would help?

 

I'm so sorry for your loss. It's heartbreaking.