AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

We returned home yesterday after 16 days overseas. During this time we had house sitters look after the animals.
The conversation focus was on the dogs when we got back, we thanked the sitters who continued their trip down south.
I went to close the chickens in for the night and noticed my Isa Brown was standing at the back of the tractor with her outh open and a dusky blue flopped comb. I immediately picked her up for a close look and her breathing was faster than normal and she felt hot under her feathers. She had a kind of bloated red undercarriage too, most unusual for her. I rang the sitter asking when did she become unwell but they claimed she was normal when they last saw her.
I took her for a walk in my arms around the garden and she was looking at things but clearly had no energy to try and get out of my arms which she usually would do after a while. I isolated her in a safe cage in our house and drip fed her honey and water little by little from a syringe just into the basin at the front of her bottom beak. I stayed and talked to her but she eventually fell off her perch and her body jerked around and shuffled then went still at 3 am this morning. I am so upset I could not save my girl and no idea what the hell went wrong.
The sitters had definitely kept the water fresh and full and the other chooks ( 5 mixed bantams) are all fine with normal red turgid combs. But today I noticed that the sitters had fed the entire 25 kg of chook food to the 6 chooks over 16 days!
Anyone here know if she could have got like this from being overfed?
Lisa

Hi Lisa,

Sorry to hear of your loss- most distressing I'm sure.

I think the clue lies in the "bloated red undercarriage" and "dusky blue flopped comb".

She may well have had a fluid build up in her abdomen which affected her breathing and oxygenation- hence the blue comb.

The most common cause of fluid build up is disease related to the reproductive tract, especially egg yolk peritonitis where the egg, once it leaves the ovary, misses the oviduct/uterus and free floats in the abdomen. The body reacts to this strange yolk material by producing fluid to try and dilute it. As the fluid builds up, the air sacs with which the birds usually breathes cannot fill with air and so less air gets to the lungs causing the breathing issues.

Draining the fluid can help to relieve the initial breathing distress but you still have to address the underlying disease. Sometimes, affected hens have reproductive tumours which are unfortunately not curable. It may have already been too late in your girl's case.

The only way to know for sure is to have a post mortem done.

parvo, when you say draining the fluid, is that something you do at home or it requires veterinary attention?

It is best done by a vet the first time to show you how to do it and what equipment to use, but it can be done at home.
You have to be careful that you sterilize the skin before sticking the needle in otherwise you may introduce infection and make the problem worse. It follows that you should use a clean needle each time.
You also have to be careful not to puncture a vital organ, but when they are that distended with fluid there is less risk of doing so.

You also need to be sure that the distension is caused by fluid and not some solid mass. You can do this by gentling squeezing the area or tapping it to see if it feels soft or gives like a balloon filled with water.

If not sure it is best left to the experts.

thanks so much for the helpful info.
I am hoping she was not in pain for long. She had not laid an egg for over a year, and I always thought it was the stress of magpies swooping constantly all year round that was the cause of her to go off laying. She was only three years old, poor baby.

Parvo, So perhaps her eggs had been resorbed all this time and finally her body just could handle it anymore?

Lisa

Quite possibly Lisa.

Don't forget that Isa Browns are bred for egg production...longevity is not exactly their strong point. Pumping out large numbers of eggs over an extended time period can be risky business.

I think my sitters will feel better when I tell them that this could be the case...
This brings me to the question of how much I ought to supply to the chooks.
Every month or even two I buy a 25kg bag of good quality layer mix with sunflower seeds but no pellets, costs around $20.00
I fill their feeder ( just a plastic roundabout thing not a grandpa feeder) and lift it up to the roof of the tractor during the day to prevent wild birds gobbling it up while the six ( now five) girls have access to the water in the tractor and as well as free range. The chooks understand when the food is lowered they get shut in for a munch in late afternoon then left till the next day when they get let out, and I elevate the feeder again.
Probably does not stop mice I know, but I hate watching them get bullied off their food by wild birds.
Before I went away, I popped a new bag in my pantry, and when I returned 16 days later, it was empty. The sitters agreed to stick to the routine re: elevating the feeder, and the wife was switched on (but I am pretty sure the 80 yo fella has some dementia that they are not admitting to).

Do you think that was too much to have given 5 tiny bantams and one isa brown? or is that about right? If it is ok, then I could be buying way more eggs for that money than the one a day ( in total) that I have been getting for a year now if I am lucky.
But perhaps the one egg a day is because I am starving them. They free range in a fairly messy area of around 70m2 under a clump of gum trees. I know the gum tree debris supposedly renders the soil underneath it practically sterile, but the girls love racing around vying for the few insects they find. Being in SEQ it is dry and when they scratch the dirt it just comes up as dust with no grubs that I can see.
If I ought to be feeding them more them I will have to keep them in the tractor I guess, to allow them time to eat undisturbed.
Can you give me your thoughts on this?
Thanks
Lisa