Young female (dec07)sleeps 24/7!symtons

naughtyniike · Snr Member Joined: Sep 22, 2007 Posts: 77

Hi
would you be able to enligten me.
i have had a fair amount of clutches now and had lost 3 females in less than a year(always female)they seem to starve themselfs and die,
they sleep and sleep then they seems to eat but looks more like they are just playing with the food not taking it in.
they are really easy to catch and sheis very light you can feel her bones her eyes do not dylate either which indecates the parents stop feeding to soon????
when awake she is like a quail at the bottom of the aviarie ,then climbs the wire to sleep on a perch .or falls asleep in the feed tray...she is puffed up like a ballon like she is cold..
i have just sold 10 very healthy birds .but kept this one back with another for company.any clue?sure i will find it dead very soon.should i try and hand feed her?or let nature take its course..the only other thing is that she missed the worming medicine last time round and to do her again now .... duno

naughtyniike · Snr Member Joined: Sep 22, 2007 Posts: 77

the only other thing is that she* COULD OF* missed the worming medicine last time round and to do her again now ....

Steptoe · Site Admin Joined: Oct 06, 2004 Posts: 4550

Mike , I would more suspect that your stock maybe well inbreed...resulting in some sort of interal disorder.

NZ captive stock over the last 10 yrs or so is becoming drastically short of a good gene pool...

Or

They are coming out of the nest box to early, and damage themselves falling to the floor...we increased the depth of nesting boxes which fixed this issue
Worming...Im sure this is not the issue...or possibly worming chicks or worming of paraents with chicks may create issues..other than a bit of advice an old breeder gave me many yrs ago, I have nothing to base this on.

wyndara · Snr Member Joined: Jun 19, 2005 Posts: 113

this seems to be a recurring theme, a lot of breeders seem to have this problem myself included. I have wormed these sick hens with disasterous results. I have begun using a sulphur based antibiotic with much better results, it is called a number of things ie. sulpha D, tripple D. It is a good treatment for coccidiosis also. So far i have not lost a hen using this medicine and they have all completely recovered.