Two Chickens Now

Well, now we have two chickens that are sick. The first one can't move at all and lies in the stall all day. She's still eating, but I'm not sure if she's drinking. I've been going in several times per day with a medicine syringe and giving her water. I've also been giving her watermelon to increase her liquid intake.

I was able to get the second girl two days ago and she's steadily getting worse. She's still able to move and can walk around her stall, but she's pretty unsteady on her feet and sits sometimes with her feet out in front of her. She's eating and drinking and has gobbled up the watermelon I've been feeding her.

I found out that we have a research facility about an hour away so I'm going to call them in the morning to see if I can bring one or both girls in to find out what they have. I've been keeping a close eye on the other girls and so far have not noticed any of them walking funny.

I do have good news on the chickens, though. Up until now they've refused to use their roosting bars in the coop at night. I've seen them on the roost at various times during the day, but never at night. They preferred to huddle on the floor in one big mass. They originally all crammed into one or two nesting boxes, but I solved that by covering the boxes up. I just removed the cover two days ago, put a cement block under the roost to raise it up and give them one more roost, and put overturned flower pots in their normal spot. When I went out to put them to bed last night I noticed that four of them were roosting! This morning the majority of them were up on the roosts when I opened their pop door. Yay! Hopefully they've figured it out.

Now if I can just keep them from getting sick.