Chicken Medicine Cabinet

I have just added a new page to the site called Chicken Medicine Cabinet. On it I will/have list/ed some of the remedies I use in caring for my chickens. There are also recipes for special diets to feed to sick chickens. Where the information is not mine, I have tried to refer to the websites I have gleaned it from with links included to the original source.

Please be aware that these are just some things I have tried over time with varying success rates. You should not presume that these remedies are a replacement for the expert opinion of a qualified vet or specialist. I am not a vet, nor do I have any training in animal medicine. Please take these hints and tips in the spirit they are offered in, and consult a veterinarian if your animal does not improve within a reasonable timeframe.

You can view the page by clicking on the tab above.

Hensington Hospital

I've had a Light Sussex hen in the Hensington Hospital for a few days here. She is one of the 'guest hens' that is staying with us while her family are overseas for the Christmas Holidays and the poor thing has caught a cold. (Colds/respiratory infections) are fairly common amongst chicken flocks and this is nothing serious. However, because she has been a little bit off colour, she has also become the victim of some bullying from her coopmates. She wound up with an injury to her head near her comb which was quite inflamed and sore so I decided to separate her out from the flock and put her into sickbay.

Photo showing (black, crusty)  nasal discharge and the sore, red area next to her
comb where another hen has pecked her.

 

Closeup of peck injury near comb on the lefthand side of the hen's head.
Swollen, sore and hot to the touch.

I isolated her, and put some avian multi-vitamins in her drinking water and then cleaned the injury with diluted hydrogen peroxide in water. I also used a Q Tip to clean some of the gunk out of her nostrils and then applied Savlon cream to the injured place on her head.

Today, the hen seems a little brighter and she laid an egg this morning which is generally a good sign. Her appetite is still good and she seems to enjoy the taste of the water with vitamins added. I will clean her wound again this afternoon, and see how she goes over the next few days. She is still coughing, so not completely out of the woods, yet. I am confident she will make a full recovery though.

Photo taken this afternoon showing reduction of swelling around the peck
injury and cleaner nostrils.

Commercial Laying Hen Problems

I've got two commercial laying hens in my flock. Rosie who is an ISA Brown and Boss, who is a black Ausrtralorp Utility. They were my original two hens, and when I got them, they were bought simply for the purpose of laying eggs and not really for any other reason. Commercial laying hens are excellent for anyone who is just wanting a few hens to provide eggs for the kitchen since they are bred to lay every day, and to never, or very rarely go broody, they are very good in those types of scenarios.


That being said, however, commercial chickens do have their own set of issues that comes along with their steady egg production. When commercial hens were first developed, they were intended for intensive farming in battery housing where they would live in temperature controlled environments with artificial lighting in order to encourage them to lay and lay and lay some more. Under those conditions, they're expected to last about 18 months and their breeding can tend to predispose them to reproductive issues.

That is what I am confronted with right now with my black utility Australorp.

About a week ago, our weather patterns took a sharp turn into hot, dry weather and on that first day, all of my chickens got quite stressed with the heat. Boss, my Australorp was also struck with a mild case of sour crop that day, which I managed to alleviate successfully, but she has not been completely 'right' since then. She's been off her food a bit, and also quite sluggish and just not herself.

For a few days, she didn't lay at all, and then she produced an egg which had a very thin shell.

Very thin shelled egg

That egg got broken by my lovely big Sussex Hen when it was her turn on the nest, and she enjoyed a little snack on the contents while she laid that day. Not her fault. There is no hen on earth who won't devour an egg that gets broken in the nest or coop, especially if it lands right in her lap, so to speak.

So for a few days after that, Boss didn't lay at all, and then she laid a normal egg. I crossed my fingers, hoping that her problems had been due to heat stress and she might have gotten over it.

Not so. Unfortunately she has been sporadic with laying since then, and then three days ago, I discovered what resembled a puddle of eggwhite in the nest with the other hens' eggs. That has been the case every day since and today, I also found the following.

Soft Shelled Egg

This is what is commonly referred to as a soft shelled egg. It's not really even a shell, seems more like just the membrane without the protective hard calcified shell around the outside to keep the egg intact. It is a very dangerous situation for a hen to be laying soft eggs like this. It is quite possible that she will wind up rupturing an egg inside her body which can cause a condition known as Egg Yolk Peritonitis. Pretty much a death sentence for her if that should happen.

Other than this egg laying problem, the hen seems fit and healthy and I am reluctant to give up on her at this stage. I have isolated her from the flock in a small pen in our garage. This is so that she will be kept in darkness 24 hours a day and hopefully will go off the lay.

By also changing her feeding routine and switching her to a different ration, I am hoping to put her into a forced moult which will mean she stops laying for some time. This should rest her system, and hopefully lead to recovery, but it is all a bit of a gamble really. Given her breeding, she might just be at the end of her productive days and I will need to make the decision whether to put her down or not.

Personally, I will not have anymore commercial layers after my current two are gone. I plan to breed Australorps anyway, and pure breeds have fewer problems with their reproductive systems due to the fact that they don't lay as many eggs.

I am hoping this poor little girl will come good, but it is a forlorn hope.

Homeopathy

Well, I finally bit the bullet. After researching several colleges that offer Homeopathy courses, I have decided on one and asked them to send me an enrolment pack. I should receive it early next week, and then I have an appointment on Thursday to go over the enrolment papers with my enrolment advisor and get it all set in motion. I will be taking a couple of bridging classes before the commencement of semester 1 next February, just to bring me up to speed with the Chemistry, Math, Biology and statistics I will need for the degree.

I'm a little bit nervous, but also excited. I've decided that once I am enrolled for this course I am 100% committed. No dropouts! I will just have to find a tutor if the going gets tough! There are some BIG subjects in this degree, including human anatomy and physiology, biology, microbiology, chemistry and biochemistry, clinical medicine along with the homeopathic medicine, history of healing, counselling, prescriptive process, clinical examination etc. It will take me a long time to complete the degree, but at the end of it, I will have a Bachelor of Health Sciences (Homeopathy) and be qualified to either open my own practice, or work in a multi-disciplinary medical practice.

The degree program is government accredited, so it is not just some fly by night fancy degree that is not worth the paper it is printed on. I will also qualify for a student loan, which will defray the costs until such time as I am earning enough money to pay it back.

This college also offers an Advanced Diploma in Animal Homeopathy, which I may look at doing later on down the track as well.
So. Here I go. *nervous smile*

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