Chickens are not fragile animals. A well-maintained flock in clean bedding may never even sneeze, but sometimes the healthiest flock can pick up a parasite or catch a disease from outside your control. Here are a few common problems observed in backyard flocks. If you notice a drooping head, sneezing, or general weakness it’s best to do some research or call your local extension to address the problem straight away.
Also known as bird flu, avian influenza gave us all a scare a few years ago when the disease was transmitted from birds to people in Asia. While it made headlines, the actual ailment is much less riveting. Avian influenza is a rare disease, scarcely a worry to people with small backyard flocks and clean coops. Despite the hype, unless you are sharing a bedroom with your chickens in a dirty cage: Don’t lose any sleep over it.
Just like us, chickens can get colds and some of them aren’t pretty. A bout of raspy bronchitis can sweep through a flock, causing the birds to breathe heavily (especially when roosting and trying to sleep at night), sneeze, discharge through the beak and eyes, and experience general malaise. It’s not life threatening, but it can ruin egg production for a few weeks. There is no cure-all, but offering a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar or Pedialyte per gallon of drinking water can help a lot. Electrolytes and clean fluid are what they need. When my birds come down with infectious bronchitis (as they do in the cold months every few years) I buy them a new font, keep it clean, and add the vinegar. They always bounce back, but you’ll miss the omelets while they’re ill. Bottom line: Proper ventilation, clean, dry bedding, and adequate space will go a long way toward preventing colds in chickens.
A common issue in the henhouse, bumblefoot is most often found in males of heavy breeds but can affect laying hens as well. It features a large, gross, pus-filled abscess on the pad of the chicken’s foot, an infection that can eventually kill the bird if it is left untreated and spreads. The best prevention is a clean coop. If it’s too late and you have a lame hen with a sore, bleeding foot you must capture her, restrain her, clean her foot, and soak it in warm water and Epsom salts. (Make sure to wear latex gloves!) Then spray on Neosporin, wrap the leg, and let the bird heal in a separate, safe, clean cage. Repeat many times.
You might walk into the coop one day and find the ghost of an egg in the nest box: a filmy, shell-less blob. If the weather is hot and your birds seem to be drooping, they might have calcium deficiency. A hen’s eggshell is 94 percent calcium carbonate so, as you can imagine, your birds can use a vital boost if you can supply it. I feed my hens oyster shell in a small pie pan by their feed. Others offer a crushed limestone, or dry out and crumble the hens’ old shells and add them back to their feed. Make sure the crushed shells do not resemble eggs, lest your birds get ideas about snacking on their own.
Caused by a dangerous parasite, this brutal intestinal disease is often associated with younger birds—and chick loss. It removes the birds’ interest in life. They no longer care to drink or eat and become droopy and listless. This easily transferable and high-mortality wasting disease is the best argument for keeping babes on medicated feed.
It is spread through droppings, so a clean brooder and coop are the best prevention. Most coccidiostats (drugs that control coccidiosis) are sulfa-based antibiotics. Antibiotics can treat it (survivors make it back in 10–14 days), but a clean environment and medicated feed beat the stress and expense of treating your flock, many of which you may lose.
Chickens can come down with chicken pox too, but it’s not related to the red, itchy bumps we might remember from childhood. Fowl pox is a wartlike infection that leaves scabby growths on the birds’ non-feathered areas (like the head, legs, feet, and vent). Sometimes it infects the inside of the animal instead causing growths in the mouth or airways. It slows the animals down and can halt egg production. It can be transferred from bird to bird through open wounds or mosquitoes. The good news is that fowl pox is slow to spread, so if you find an affected bird you can remove it from the flock and the others may not catch it. Let the hen heal on its own (which may take two weeks) and return it when the warts are gone and the bird appears healthy. There is no known treatment. It cannot be spread to humans.
KINKY BACK
If you are considering meat birds, this is a fairly common disease of broiler flocks, a sad side effect of engineering animals to grow faster and fatter than they should. The rapidly growing spine twists, arching or bending to the point of paralysis and crippling the bird indefinitely. Ultimately the legs give out under the massive weight. It’s not pretty and there is no cure: these birds must be culled for their own sake.
They will not be able to survive to harvest weight, and their lives would be sorry ones.
This throat disease is caused by birds being in contact with infected droppings or with the carcasses of infected birds. Its symptoms are trouble swallowing, ruffled feathers around the neck, and watery eyes. Your hens might gasp, stretch out their necks, and suffer just to breathe. Their throats are getting clogged up from mucus, and it could kill the bird if not seen to. The virus can be treated only via vaccine, since antibiotics are useless.
Lice are not fun. These little, flat, straw-colored bugs can live on your chickens in the land between the skin and feathers and cause mild problems (like itching) or more awful ones (like so much itching your poor hens can’t sleep). Chickens must be able to clean themselves, so regular free-range flocks that can ruffle their feathers, preen, and take dust baths usually keep down their louse issues through normal care. But birds with sliced-off beaks in confinement with no opportunity to gussy up may be more susceptible. If your birds get lice you can remedy it with a powdering of anti-lice-mite treatment.
This unfortunate, serious, and fast-acting disease will kill a whole flock if left to spread. Marek’s is a form of bird herpes that causes everything from splayed-leg crippling to spinal cysts. Symptoms include young chicks eating constantly but losing weight, white tumors with brown scabs on the skin, and paralyzed legs (one leg pointing forward and the other back). You’ll notice the pupils of their eyes shrinking to pinpoint specks, along with general depression. The only prevention is vaccination, and there is no cure. Remove the bird and put it down.
Internal parasites are common in outdoor birds—and some say that all free-range farm birds may carry at least a small amount—but too many can make a bird sick or even kill her. There are medications to clear it up, but you may not realize that parasites (being internal) are the issue until it’s too late. To avoid an outbreak: Prevent overcrowding, keep birds on clean litter and bedding, and make sure the droppings of wild birds (like pigeons and songbirds) don’t get mixed into the chicken’s main living area.
I lost two hens. It seems that when the weather really starts to change, when the first truly cold or warm nights hit in late fall or early summer, I lose some birds. This morning a three-year-old and a three-month-old were both belly up in the coop—and another hen is starting to droop just like the other two had. I hope she kicks back into shape.
Because they’re calling for snow showers I had a lot of farm prep to do in case the morning met me with a layer of powder. After a hard day’s work, my final chore was to retrieve the last pumpkin from the garden, a behemoth wider than two volleyballs. I trudged out to the garden and sliced the vines with my knife, then heaved the beast over my shoulder, breathing heavily.
As I walked through the garden gate, I spied the dead little brown hen I had placed there earlier that morning. I sighed. Putting down the giant pumpkin, I carried her softly over to the compost and set her among the graceful decline. I’d raised that bird and eaten her eggs, and she had served this farm well. She deserved a few moments and a proper spot in the quiet of the pile. Now she’d become next year’s vegetables. I said a hushed thank-you, heaved the pumpkin back over my shoulder, and went inside.