Caring for a sick Chicken — James Gibbon
As a chicken keeper, when one of your chickens gets sick it is absolutely terrifying. Concern for the chickens health and well being becomes the ultimate priority, and it becomes time to do what needs to be done to bring the chicken back to health. One day we opened our coop to find one of our chickens severely ill. She was weak, only able to walk for short periods, severe diarrhea, loss of egg production, loss of voice, and total loss of personality. What made matters worse was that this was our favorite chicken in the flock. We could not afford to lose her. I instantly went to backyardchickens.com and began researching to find an answer. After a few searches in their forums, I was able to find a close match to her symptoms. The illness looked to be something called Coccidiosis — a parasitic disease. The good news… there was a cure; something called Corid. This solution became our only hope. I rushed down to Murdochs and purchased the Corid and a syringe. We immediately started putting this solution in the chickens water and drenching her with the solution through her beak.
After a couple days she was still very sick. We were experiencing some hot summer days and thought it would be a good idea to separate her from the flock and get her to a cool place. We captured her and put her in a dog kennel and transported her to a cooler location. Here we were able to provide her with corid water, gatorade, and Hen Boost. We did this everyday for the next 5 days or so. With time she started to get better. Her personality started to come back, and she was speaking to us again. I instantly became overwhelmed with gratitude. I really thought there was a chance she could die, and for her to make a full recovery is nothing short of remarkable. I am so thankful to backyardchickens.com for helping us diagnose and cure our precious chicken. I hope all of you use this resource as it is very valuable and helped save our chicken’s life.
Originally published at https://montanafarmlife.com on August 17, 2020.
