Poorly chicken - help required

[Shirley]

This has been posted on the Neeps forum http://neeps.myfreeforum.org/about1626.html - you can read the replies there. I've just been speaking to Kimmie and she made the comment that it's like the chicken has narcolepsy and just wants to sleep. I wondered whether anyone here could throw any light on the situation. Don't worry, you don't need to register at Neeps to answer.... just answer here and that will be fine.

Many thanks in advance.

As some of you know, I gave Kimmie some of my pullets last weekend - the day of the NEEPS meet in fact.

She has 6 - two small ones, and 4 bigger ones. The two small ones were confined when I gave them to her, and have settled no bother in their indoor coop and run. Three of the bigger hens have settled fine, but one is ailing really badly.

I have been over to see what the problem is but I am at a loss.
She is really listless, hardly bothering to wander about or scratch.
She takes water but hasn't eaten since she moved house.
She is skin and bone, and her breast bone is fairly protruding.
She had nothing at all in her crop.
I couldn't feel any obstructions in her vent area, and her bum is clean.
I had a poke about the poo's I could find and there was no sign of parasites.
She has no parasites that I could see in her feathers, around her eyes or her vent.
Her eyes are clear and her comb is not pale.
Her legs are smooth.
I threw her gently down from a low drop and she used her wings to glide in to land no bother.
She has a wobble when she walks, and seems not to see things, walking into them.
She was dead easy to catch, and when I was handling her she didn't pant or panic, she just sat there. Actually, she started to doze off.
I have checked her feet and claws and they are clean and I pressed up and down the legs and the feet - no wounds or sensitivities that I can see.

She is drinking water. We have seperated her from the rest of the flock, but she is in a cage within the run so the others can still see her. She has a heat lamp now to keep her warm. Kimmie gave her a wee bit of yoghurt (on the recommendation of a page from Katie Thear to try and feed the natural bacteria in the stomach), and she has taken some milk as well. We tried to give her a wee bit of wormer but didn't want to stress her out, so we have hardly given her enough to matter.

I can't see anything physical wrong with her. The other pullets are well and perky, and none of mine are poorly. The only thing Kimmie and I can come up with is shock from the move and a subsequent depression.

Her circumstances have changed from being within a flock of 30 birds to a flock of 6, albeit those 6 are siblings. She has gone from being outside, free range on grass to inside a barn with a run of sawdust. Oh, and her food has changed. She was being fed both with scatter for scratching and from a static food source; now it is scatter, and Kimmie has changed from growers pellets to something else that is organic but I can't remember what.

Am I missing something? I am at a complete loss. Typically it is the only pullet Kimmie and Matt have named

[Millymollymandy]

Well I'd be depressed if I was an outdoor chicken that was shut indoors suddenly all day long.

Maybe she doesn't like the sudden change in food either - it is usually recommended to change food gradually rather than suddenly for all animals so I guess chickens would be the same.

I've seen my hens act like that sometimes but they've always snapped out of it by the next day.

Don't really have an answer, sorry.

[Stonehead]

Mareks?

[Shirley]

Thanks - I'll pass your comments on :)

[Shirley]

Thanks again for the help but the chicken died last night.

[Camile]

Hello and sorry to be late ..

but I go with Stonehead on this one .. it sounds like Marek . .

I bought a trio of hens one day, and once they arrived, one went bad this way ... and at the end we diagnosed marek.

It's usually found in most bird but is dormant, and a big stressfull change like this one can trigger it, or sometimes when pullets start laying ..

Not much you can do for it ...

Camile

[Shirley]

Thanks Camile

[Thomzo]

What's marek?

Can it be avoided?

Cheers
Zoe

[Meredith]

I've had problems with Marek. The first lot of chucks I got were Silkies, I didn't know at the time that they were prone to Mareks disease, or that they didn't lay eggs unless there was nothing else on the agender, but that's a different story.

You can get a vaccine as it is pretty much endemic in the environment, however, I've hatched chucks since, of a more robust variety and have not had any proiblems since.

It's a horrible disease causing lesions in the brain and there is no cure.

Meredith.

[Thomzo]

Thanks for that. I'd never heard of it.

Cheers
Zoe

[Stonehead]

The veterinary description of Marek's Disease.

It can be quite difficult to get the vaccine from your vet - at least in my experience. The vaccine is in commercial quantities to 1,000 chickens or so, but as not much is needed that amount did cost about £12 a year ago.

My vet believes you shouldn't worry about Marek's unless your chickens get it. And if they do, cull them and start again with more resistant chickens.

[Shirley]

That's a great link - thanks Stoney.