Unwell Orpington pullet

I have a 6 1/2 month old pullet that I noticed this morning is unwell - slow moving, looking puffy and a purple hue to her comb. Eyes, nose and breathing are fine. She is eating.

Any thoughts on what to do for her to help her pull out of it if possible. I've got her isolated in a dog crate on the back deck at the moment.

Sorry to hear about this Chicory.
Doesn't sound good, sounds like either a heart issue or breathing issue. I am guessing since you said she is healthy otherwise that it is a heart issue, and not sure anything can be done for her?

Thanks Jayme. So educate me here. Her breathing 'appears' fine but you're saying it still could be that.

And help me understand from what I told you how it could be heart. I am totally coming from a place of wanting to learn how to diagnose better myself with little to go by.

I know that animals/people can get blue if their heart is not pumping properly, the oxygen is not getting around the boys as it should, so the extremities will start to turn puplish, kind of like your hens comb.
Breathing is the same thing, if they cannot get a lot of oxygen in when they are breathing they will turn purple too.

The only real why of knowing I guess would be to get a stethescope, if you have one, and listen to her heart and lungs. I have never done this to a chicken, so not sure exactly how many beats per minute or breaths per minute they should have, but it would be a good start. IF the lungs are crackly or if you do not hear a steady heart beat then it would be one way to tell.

Also with her seperated, I would put her in a quiet spot, that is when you would pick up on breathing issues, weather it be stuffy or if she is trying to breath through her mouth?

I'm on my way to town now and company for dinner. I'll be back though. Thanks Jayme!

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sorry to hear about your hen too, not sure what it could be..
That was helpful Tara, didn't know there were stats readily available on chicken respiration rates!
I thought that was interesting about life span of chickens, has anyone here ever had a bird live that long?
Once we had a white layer cross that was 12 or 13, we thought she was pretty amazing

Thanks for the info Tara, I posted it under useful links as a sticky so people can refer to it as needed

ChicoryFarm, I wish you luck with learning what might be troubling your hen. Chickens are prone to all sorts of illnesses and to the regular chicken person, it is very difficult to discern what the problem is from just looking.

It has been my experience that chickens are more able to recover from injuries than I ever expected! IF you can keep infection down and the trauma is not too extensive, like broken bones or punctured lungs, they can recover when you thought there was no hope!

But from illness, I have found that is most cases (not all) by the time the bird looks sick...there's not much to do beyond wait and see. Isolating her and making sure she is warm, has food and water, is about all I would be doing at this point.

From seeing this sick chicken you will learn when your birds are simply bothered with an illness, or downright sick from it. Some people dose their flock with antibiotics at the first signs of sneezes or sniffles. I have learned that sneezes and sniffles show up now and then and everyone sounds stuffy, but carry on as usual with no change in behaviour or appearance. Then there are times a bird looks and acts sick. Those are the times you try to do what you can by isolating and providing every chance to recover..which is exactly what you have done.

I do not keep antibiotics for my chickens. But I do keep a bottle of homeopathic chicken emergency potion on hand. I mixed it up myself and when I don't know what else to do, I use that. Does it work? Who knows. SOme make it, some don't. I hope yours does.

Thank you Uno, Tara and Jayme. Appreciate your thoughts. I have her in my basement (sound familiar anyone?) and her breathing appears totally normal. The only sign is that dang purple comb. THis morning it is more purple just at the tips and not as much at the base. She hasn't demonstrated the puffy look she was showing when in the coop since I brought her inside but I think that's just because she's a little more on guard with the new environment. Of course she is the one buff orp who has really charmed me by being the first one at the gate to greet me along with a unusually cute little face. She is also the one responsible for me feeling more drawn to the breed itself. It's hard not to get attached to the ones who stand out in the flock for good reasons.

Anyways, Tara thanks for that little clip from Gail's book. It definitely is not the feed and it better not be any of those other nasty possibilities. The rest of the flock appears really healthy and I hate that nagging fear of it being contagious but so far everyone else is good. More will be revealed. Perhaps I'll put a little electrovyte in her water and some treats to perk her up.

Another thought occured to me... a touch of frostbite can make a comb turn a purple color. If the temp dipped enough, even a hen can suffer from frostbite. And following that she could appear miserable and unhappy while her comb is tender and healing.

I agree to just watch her for any other symptoms for now. If the outer skin of her comb begins to peel, use some barrier salve like vaseline or raw honey and keep her separate from the flock so no one can pick at it.
Hope everything turns out alright.

KathyS wrote:Another thought occured to me... a touch of frostbite can make a comb turn a purple color. If the temp dipped enough, even a hen can suffer from frostbite. And following that she could appear miserable and unhappy while her comb is tender and healing.

I agree to just watch her for any other symptoms for now. If the outer skin of her comb begins to peel, use some barrier salve like vaseline or raw honey and keep her separate from the flock so no one can pick at it.
Hope everything turns out alright.

Kathy, I did wonder 'frostbite?' this morning when I went to look at her but why not any of my other 70 birds, including bantams or roosters for that matter? She woke up with it yesterday morning before I let her out and there is good ventilation in the coops and she is an Orp after all. We shall see. Thanks kathy.

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I hope your henny recovers. I would think if her circulation is poor (due to heart congestion problems etc) she'd be more prone to frostbite and the comb gets colder and colder and the blood is barely replaced with fresh warm blood from her core, especially when it is fighting gravity to get up there too. I agree with Uno, often when a bird looks and is actually ill it is harder for them to return to normal that chooks that have had a nasty injury.

We lost a young fast-growing 3 month old wellie roo whose comb and wattles went deep reddy purple over a half a day and he had trouble breathing and moving just before he went in my arm, fluid in the lungs. I had him autopsied with everything else that was going on in 2010, and I wondered if it was congestive heart failure and it was. Orps are big birds, maybe if her heart wasn't 100% to start it's placing more strain on it.

We actually had a dog with a heart murmur and the fluid in his lungs, and the vet had us give him half an aspirin a day which bought him another 3 years.

I suspect a fraction of an aspirin would help your hen temporarily, but I am not sure how long for. You are doing the right things, keep her warm and separate with some quiet time, time will tell, it could be something else like plain frost nippage too. Poor honey, hope she's better soon. Hugs.

Thanks Skeff. She is actually doing great, cackling like crazy in the basement as I type this. The noise alarmed us for a second coming from the inside the house - lol! Anyways, her comb has almost turned back to the bright red it originally was and she seems in good spirits. My thinking at this point is that it very well could be heart and that her comb did turn purple overnight on one of our colder nights thus far as the blood just wasn't getting to it properly. I made up some cayenne infused olive oil last winter for this very issue and haven't had to use it until now. I'll massage it into her comb and pop her back in with her flock this morning.

I'll consider the aspirin treatment if it happens again.

Thanks again everyone for your support and guidance. I LOVE WCPS!

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No problem. She sounds better, that is great. If she is a pet girl is there a way of her having her own heat lamp in the corner of the main coop. I did that for some seriously feather pecked Wellies a few years back and they did like to get under it when they wanted. It may take some of the stress off her to compensate for the weather conditions.

I know our orps combs are so big and flop over so I would think are more effort to perfuse with blood. The black pennies have pretty big ones too and in our unheated coops they sometimes get the tips nipped in the cold.

It seem the real cold does stress those birds just getting by and it always seems people lose more old birds in the cold snaps. A heat lamp or even oil radiator type heater might even things up a bit. Sounds like her spa treatment will be a treat anyway.

Well this leads to another question......I do have a lovely Orp roo from Hidden that I would like to breed to the Orp hens (from a different breeder). Should I not use her for breeding given she's showing signs of heart issues? I'm guessing I shouldn't. If not, I could put her in with my bantams long term, who share the same coop as her but are divided by a wire wall. They have a heat lamp at night when it drops below -5.

I just don't want to get into providing heat for the flock she's with now in hopes that by not doing so, it will keep them hardy.

I'm glad to hear your Orp pullet is on the mend Chicory. Personally, I wouldn't take a chance and breed her if you think she has a heart condition. Sorry.

I'm okay with that Flicker. Thanks for your advice. I have a few of them to choose from for breeding. I banded her leg to make sure I don't lose track of who she is if she does bounce back health-wise. Just observing her with her flock, she is still slightly puffed and her comb isn't quite as bright up against the others, although a definite improvement from a few days ago. We shall see.

ChicoryFarm wrote:Well this leads to another question......I do have a lovely Orp roo from Hidden that I would like to breed to the Orp hens (from a different breeder). Should I not use her for breeding given she's showing signs of heart issues? I'm guessing I shouldn't. If not, I could put her in with my bantams long term, who share the same coop as her but are divided by a wire wall. They have a heat lamp at night when it drops below -5.

I just don't want to get into providing heat for the flock she's with now in hopes that by not doing so, it will keep them hardy.

That is understandable on not heating your main flock. Our layer coop is 20 by 16 and that year we only had 40 hens and it was a super cold one, so I don't think it raised overall temps much. I wouldn't have heated the whole space, better to have them elsewhere.

As long as you have a place for here to be a bit warmer and not lonely, you have a plan! It sounds like you have an ideal setup with the banties. Some people would just say to heck with it she is on her own, or just cull or something, but I think that gives a lovely pet hen a good chance at a happy life.

She will have company and not the added stress of a very big boy rooster trying to squash her daily, maybe just a little whipper-snapper round her ankles! Good idea to leg band her. I agree, I wouldn't breed her. Whether it is heart problems, lack of resistance to a bug, too rapid a growth rate, or poor stress tolerance, it may well be heritable.