# Snake bite?



## vellenturner (Jul 4, 2013)

Hello, I lost a buff orph today after around 8 days of very unusual behavior. None of the other hens, 4 australo ps and 3 buffs, plus 2 Roos are showing any signs of ANYTHING. After watching her for 3 days, I isolated her. At first it was lagging behind everyone else when I would call them. Then she acted as though she was broody a day or two by staying in the hen house on the nest. Finally I brought her into the house in a cage when she would stand around and act sleepy. She wouldn't even go after raisins, and that is when I brought her in. I force fed her, gave her everything I could to help her for chickens. I had wormed them 9 days before this started. Earlier this spring I had brought home some chicks who must have gotten cold and started sneezing and one sounded wheezy. So I treated them with Talon in the mouth for 5 days and they all came out of it. They have been kept in a cage away from everyone under a light and now they are getting big enough to be outside longer. Anyway, I have read EVERYTHING concerning her symptoms and none of her symptoms pointed to any one thing. We did notice she stopped drinking and we force fed her water. She would eat, but would sit and sleep a lot. My husband had a dog get bite by a copperhead and the vet said to keep her hydrated. After remembering how she acted, he said the chicken acted that way. Nothing we did saved her. The are free range in the woods at least 6 hours a day. I saw one hen kill a garter snake and eat it and we (chickens and I) watched a 3 foot black snake slither through the backyard. We think perhaps she got snake bit. Has anyone had a chicken get snake bit and you knew it? She was listless, sleepy and droopy. None of the other chickens have changed their behavior except for one who is sitting on 5 eggs. And she Is broody.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

How old was the hen? Was she laying?

The little you've said about her sounds more like a reproductive problem.


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## vellenturner (Jul 4, 2013)

She was 1 1/2 years old and laying eggs until she started acting strange. She went into the nest almost every day with the others but I can't say she laid an egg every day. There was one day she stayed in the nest all day. I thought she was getting broody. She hatched 6 eggs last year and a hawk got everyone of them in our back yard, no matter what we did. Every other day or so one would go missing even though they were penned! It was so frustrating. I wondered if she was pinning away for baby chicks as she seemed very interested in the new chicks we brought home. We examined her for 'egg bound' but she wasn't. What else could it have been? No one else has had any problems, thank goodness.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

There is simply no way to know because everything is so vague. It could have been any number of things but not knowing exactly what she was doing, what she looked like all that can be offered are guesses.


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