Unknown Disease: A Professors Story
Poppi as I call her, but her full name is Professor Ratigan. Named after the villian from the movie "The Great Mouse Detective".
As a pullet Poppi was full of spark and saz. She often as a chick challanged her brother in the pecking order. Just after that first egg she started changing. Her self confidence slowly went away (I didnt really notice back then since I was so new to chickens.)
The second that really made realize that something is wrong, she started laying shell-less eggs and soft shelled eggs. The chicken care handbook says its a lack of calcium. Some adviced me that some hens are bad at eating their oyster shells.
The soft shell and shell-less eggs stopped for a while, but her eggs turned all white instead of the beige color silkies should have. They also got more of a rough feeling among the shell instead of that smooth one they should have. (This is also a symtom I have reflected back on. That I did not realize back then.)
I did the same treatment when it came back and like before it went away for a while and then came back.
Did this for about 2 days before I actully decied that my knowledge ends here. I need help.
Vetrinarians who takes in chickens are few everywhere. Im lucky to have 4 clincs sort of close to me.I knew that you could stop egglaying in chickens with a implant. I knew that she needed this. The Vet agreed with me.
I leaved the clinic with the implant and no diagnose what caused it, only a speculation: inflammation in the oviduct.
The implant would take 2 weeks to start working so could not be that. Perhaps the Vet had a magic touch?
I always let my broodies lay 21 days (with no chicks under). She really needed this break from laying. She also got to be broody with her closest sister.After this broody session, it was like her system rebooted. She started to molt and it was not a small molt. She lost almost every feather (unlucky enough the temprature would go down to almost -20 celsius around this week).
Slowly her feathers grew back and that crest she had not had in a long time came back. The crest yet again became the next issue but this time the other way around.
She have had such a small crest for such a long time. So now when she got this massive crest, she had a hard time seeing. With this she got depressed.
How did I know she was depressed?
- Standing by her self, not walking with the others.
- Eating less
- Not jumping down from the perch in the morning.
This could easily be confused for sickness but I had a suspicion that it could be the crest. It was easy to test that suspicion: put her crest in a hairbun.
Soon as she could see she started moving around and hanging out with the rest of the flock.
I never got an answer why they did this. Some say she has genes from another color, some says its normal for chickens to do this as they age and some say (and what I also believe) that this is a form of "stress lines".
There is some illnesses that can cause these symtoms, most common are:
- Salpingitis (which is a sort of inflammation in the oviduct)
- a fault in the glad that produce the shell.
- parasite infection.
When I look at her today, knowing how she looked and felt before, I smile. She looks like a whole other bird. One of her favorite things to do now is her little happy run, when she jumps around like a little chick.
Read more about Suprelorin Implant here or contact your closest avian clinic to get the information
Update
One day I opend the coop door to a softshelled egg right under Poppi. Her implant had stop working. It work abit over half a year.
Lucky enough the Vet was fast with ther appoiment and she got a new implant just the day after.
This show that this was not just a temporary problem and that there is still a problem that can be slowed down with the implant.