Chicken bald back

[Mr Rhode Island Red]

Hi everybody,

 

My oldest hen, Sadie, is 7 and a half years old and it looks like this is starting to take a toll on her.

 

The past few days she has been sick enough. She seems to be lethargic. She is drinking and eating but doesn't seem to be able to keep down water and as a result I think she could be becoming dehydrated. This morning she headed over for a drink with the rest of the flock and drank water. I watched her for 10/15 minutes and noticed she was regurgitating the water and occasionally vomiting it out. I did a general health check, vent seems fine, as do the nose, eyes and everything else. I don't think it is sour crop because her breath isn't foul-smelling. When she vomits up the water it is as it was when she drank it, it isn't brown or red or pink or anything.

 

Any idea what I should do? Maybe syringe water, garlic, ACV etc.?

 

Thanks,

 

Mr RIR

[Egluntyne]

I'd say that at 7 she has reached the end of the road. Sounds like she may have an obstruction of some sort, ie a tumour. I'd take her to the vet or cull her. I'm not sure that a home remedy such as ACV will make any difference tbh.

[Beantree]

Sorry to hear about Sadie MrRIR. We lost our oldest hen 6 months ago and she was 7 ½. It was heart problem.

 

I doubt syringing anything into her will help as it sounds as though she will just bring it back again. She appears to have a major blockage somewhere which hopefully is just an impacted crop. Feel the crop to see if there is a very hard lump in there. If so try gentle massage to break it up. Her crop may be completely full of water as well, so finding any lump may not be that simple. Stick with massaging anyway, it may just help move things.

 

There are other less likely scenarios which you ought to be aware of based on my experience. Impacted gizzard, Lymphoid Lucosis (tumours), very advanced fungal cankers in the throat and crop. None have been successfully treated in our case I'm afraid, so lets hope it's not one of those.

[Mr Rhode Island Red]

In fairness to her she is doing well to make it past 7 years old, tis very old for a hen. Well, actually her ovaries broke down at a young age and she didn't lay a massive number of eggs as far as I can remember, so she is one of these "gender swap chickens" but she still did well in my eyes. She's the only hen I have remaining from my first flock of hybirds I got in 2007 (she was born in December 2006).

 

I'll try the massaging and hope for the best, who knows, she might come back to herself.

 

Thanks for the advice