Good Morning!

[WLLady]

how old is she? it could be so many things. if her comb is really pale it could be heart failure. If she is randomly backing up and then standing and trembling it could be a vit B deficiency. could be coccidiosis (do her droppings smell bad?). if her droppings are yellow or green it could be liver failure. the standard mite check would be in order, to make sure she isn't overrun with lice or mites....but in my experience, once they are showing those symptoms they're too far gone already for treatment. You should get her separated from the flock just in case it's communicable. keep her warm, high protein food and warm water with electrolytes, treat any mites/lice. it could also be mareks, which is not treatable....so many things it could be. i'm sorry she's not doing well....hopefully it's just a pile of mites and she's anemic and once they are gone she'll feel better, but i fear many times it's heart or liver failure.

[Killerbunny]

I think she is around 4 or 5?

[SusanH]

Yes @Killerbunny hatched Jul 2017, such lovely girls from your house.
Thanks @WLLady you give me hope. I will bring her inside to be warm and feed her warm quinoa or oatmeal and electrolytes and hope for the best.
How do I check for mites other than visually?
I’ve gone backwards it seems. I used to be fairly confident, from reading PTO regularly. Got complacent.

[Killerbunny]

Get a piece of sticky tape and wrap it around your finger. Press around her vent and under wings. ANy mites etc. should be on the tape.
ALso take a good snif around the coop and her. I have lost several from these lines to egg peritonitis around the same age. You will know at once if that's the problem.

[WLLady]

If she really is 4-5 years old that's definitely prime time for egg peritonitis, which is basically internal laying....the eggs end up inside the body cavity instead of out in the nesting box. It's lethal, there's no treatment. If her tummy feels extended and she smells bad....unfortunately with egg peritonitis doing the right thing needs to be done, because they will not survive it. sigh. I'ts also about the time that if someone is going to have heart issues it will happen-either at about 4 months old, or 4-5 years old. you can tell that by a really really pale comb, or a comb that is nice and red when the chicken is active and then pale pink to almost white or purply when they are lethargic. Again, not much (if anything) to do for heart issues.
Mites looks like sand walking all over on their skin, particularly by the vent. Lice are bigger and run faster.....
i hope she comes around with some warmth and extra TLC, but if she doesn't then be confident that you tried, and some things we just can't fix.

[WLLady]

well, december 47 2020. another death in the family last night. my last remaining uncle passed away after a long stint of health issues. He had picked up some kind of cough/cold/whatever just before he passed, waiting on if it was covid or not. So, out of my mother's entire generation there is 1 sister remaining and my mother, out of 8 people, mostly from cancer, a few from covid 19. mostly all of them in the last year. it has been brutal. so i guess these things come in the 3s. That's 2 in 10 days now for me.....so.....everyone i know, please be careful, stay home.....try not to do anything stupid please...but if you must at least have a great time and go out happy....

beautiful frosty morning again, frost on everything. molly is still doing great. finally getting at least a dozen eggs daily now. YAY for the days getting longer. have a bit of cleaning to do in the barn this weekend, 2 chicken pens and the hallway where the ducks are hanging out is a bit messy, so time to clean up. put in some new shavings for everyone, and clean out nesting boxes and do the winter mite treatment regimen. my neighbour has also requested some help with a rooster that has taken an exception to the kids. The kids tend to be super high strung around him, and it's just escalated into him taking exception to the screaming and running, and now he's chasing them off. So rooster needs an attitude adjustment, and the kids need some training too. if i had that behaviour going after my girls for eggs all the time i'd go after them too. so. a little bit of education needed all around. and if that doesn't work, he'll come back here, because he's a nice ameraucana and i would put him with the 4 girls i have and make some new chicks for this year.

hope everyone has a good weekend.

[Killerbunny]

I was going to suggest a goat if Molly needs a pal, I think there's a chap in your areaish that has them?????
Also get rid of the kids.
Sorry to hear about your Uncle.

[kenya]

Ha!Ha! Ha! A goat! You want to keep her mind off things chasing the escaping goat. I know from experience that they are Houdini's.
@WLLady Sorry for your losses such a hard year.

[WLLady]

NO GOATS! lol. yes i know farrier went and busted his leg, and yes, he's not too far from me, and yeah, i'm sure his goats are wonderful and friendly and "not escape artists" HA HA HA. I'm sure you all remember the 2 very long very very long weeks we spent looking after a farm down the road when they went away....their goats were enough to drive us insane. The final straw was the day we were doing chores, the goats were nowhere....not in in the pen we had WIRED SHUT.....i found them by accident when i went to the hay mow to get a bale for the horse, and there were the goats. they had jumped the fence, then climbed the tree to jump the next fence, and jumped into the manure pile, climbed the manure pile and jumped up through a 2x2 foot window into the hay mow on the second story of the barn. you have NOT lived until you have tried to catch and shove 16 goats, 1 at a time, through a trap door from the second floor hay mow to the first floor of the barn......NO GOATS! they would lay down in the water trough (a concrete trough under the fence) and roll under the fence to get out. they could pick locks. they could undo rope. they could climb trees. they could climb the fence. they hated my hubby so they were my job to look after. it was easier when i figured out a bucket with gravel in it could call them from whatever hell's half acres they were on! but OMG NO GOATS!

[Farrier1987]

Goats are somewhat like kids. One is not usually a problem. Its when they form a group or committee to see what they can get into. One goat and one horse would probably be fine. Both herd animals, and they become a herd of two. Keep the horse in and the goat wont go too far. Doesn't mean they wont eat nearby fruit trees, gardens etc, but wont get terrible far from the horse. And you could always amputate one leg of the goat, that would help some too. A hind leg I think, works kind of like clipping a wing, doesn't killem, but slows em down a bit.

WLL and I have discussed this, and in order to preserve a semblance of friendship, we have agreed to not discuss it any more. No goats!!! she said. No goats!!!! she shall have.