Our family has kept a flock of chickens in the backyard for several years now. While I by no means consider myself a chicken expert, I have definitely learned a few things during that time, particularly when it comes to healing a sick chicken.
In my experience, when a chicken gets ill, you’d better take action and fast. Birds, in general, are quite fragile creatures. Unlike a mammal like a dog or a cat where you can usually adopt the “wait and see” approach for a day or two, the same approach has a good chance of killing a laying hen.
Figuring out what is wrong is difficult, in my experience. This article details how I mistook a broody hen for a sick one. Thankfully, a fellow chicken-owning friend helped me figure things out, and I was able to quickly help her recover completely. As of this writing, she is an energetic and regularly laying hen with quite a dose of personality to match.
Having nursed a number of sick chickens of 4 different breeds back to full health over the past three years, I thought I would share my recipe for what I feed them. I start using this recipe as soon as I notice any sort of lethargy or discomfort in one of our hens. I don’t wait to see if things get worse as they usually will. The faster you jump on it, the better the chances of success.
Our chickens free range around our two-acre property for about 6-8 hours per day. During that time, they eat plenty of insects, grubs, worms, and fresh shoots that they find by scratching around. They receive a small amount of supplemental organic layer feed in the evening when they return to the coop to roost for the night. Incidentally, we have zero spider problems since getting chickens. They are the best natural spider repellent I’ve ever come across!
Given our chickens’ healthy lifestyle and diet, they don’t tend to get sick much. Our most recent bout with a sick chicken occurred when my best layer hen ate what looked like a large toad. I saw her tossing it around in the early evening and that she did eventually eat it. I wondered at the time if she would get sick from the poison that is in the skin of many toads.
Sure enough, the next day, she was very lethargic and slow to come out of the coop in the morning. She wouldn’t eat anything but was drinking water – a good sign. First, I added a small amount of raw apple cider vinegar to her drinking water as well as the water for the rest of the flock (2 Tbl/gallon – quality source). This is an extremely helpful practice to help alleviate any sort of digestive issue a chicken may be having and to prevent its spread.
Next, I started her on this nutrient dense food for a sick chicken, and I’m happy to report that after two days, she seems well on the road to recovery. The picture below shows Nugget digging into her sick chicken food. As you can see from the picture, her comb is pale and a bit more flopped over than usual. A pale colored comb is one of the first signs that a hen is not feeling her best.
Eggs … for Chickens?
Since this post was first published, I’ve received a few dismayed emails from people who think that feeding liver and eggs to chickens is inappropriate even if they are unfertilized. Regarding the concern about eggs, I would point out that some chickens like to eat their own eggs anyway!
In fact, when you have an “egg breaker” chicken, it is a very difficult habit to break. Chickens really like to eat eggs. In addition, pretty much all the chicken forums I’ve visited in the past few years recommend scrambled egg as a wonderful healing food for a sick chicken. You have to wonder if the people who don’t like this idea have ever owned chickens before to witness their natural behavior firsthand.
If the idea still makes you uncomfortable, use quail eggs or source from other poultry birds. Free range duck eggs are particularly easy to find year-round although eggs from geese are seasonal.
Regarding the liver, chickens are omnivores and liver is the most nutritious meat on the planet. Why not feed a bit of nutrient-dense liver to a chicken? They get liver anyway when they free range. I’ve seen my chickens eat very small mammals, lizards, etc. My chickens particularly like to chase down my cats after they’ve caught a bird or mouse and try to take it off them to eat for themselves. These animals of prey all have livers!
What do you feed sick chickens at your homestead? What chicken breeds do you prefer and why. Please share!
Sick Chicken Chow
Recipe for food to feed a sick or convalescing chicken.
Ingredients
- 1 free range or pastured egg
- 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 pinch sea salt
- 1 Tbl whole milk preferably grassfed
- 1 Tbl raw liver preferably grassfed
Instructions
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Mix all the ingredients together well.
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Pour mixture into a small pan on the stovetop. Medium heat.
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Scramble the egg as usual.
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After the scrambled egg cools, grate in the fresh, raw liver.
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Give to your chicken immediately.
Recipe Notes
Try to feed the sick chicken when she is alone. Otherwise, the healthy hens will eat it all up before she can get in a single bite!
Scrambled egg is the perfect food for a sick chicken because it is soft and easy to eat. It is also the perfect delivery mechanism for the other therapeutic ingredients like the liver and olive oil.
The olive oil is a very important ingredient as this will safely loosen up anything that might be stuck digestively or within the reproductive system. A partially formed or stuck egg or a bit of toxic food that was eaten will be moved out of the system quickly this way.
The raw liver is an important ingredient as it is incredibly nutrient dense and a superfood. Remember, chickens are omnivores. A hen that is sick is probably not eating much, so the few bites she takes must be as loaded with nutrition as possible. If you don't have any liver, just make the olive oil infused scrambled egg, but note that you may not experience as much success healing your hen.
If your sick chicken does not eat all the chow, that is fine. The rest of the flock will happily eat it up when they discover it.
Make this recipe fresh once a day until your chicken is fully recovered.
My little chicken does respond to stimuli and does not eat much ,also forcefully stand sometimes trying to close it’s eye. What should I do
My Broody(her name)is a 9 year old red shaver and has been handraised. She has been vet checked 1 year ago and suffers from dimentra now and has had a stroke. We believe she is almost blind now as she can’t find her way around. She started having siezures two months ago and even though she is eating and drinking I have been a bit concerned about the small fits she has. I will give her the eggs tomorrow and vinegar. Thanks for the ideas.
iSN”T
Isn’t oatmeal good for sick chickens? I thought a little cooked oatmeal with olive oil might get their appetite going.
My chicken has bubbling eyes and boogers coming out his nose. What should i do?
Sounds like a respiratory infection. You need to see a vet asap.
My chicken can’t stand, was eating and drinking but then stopped!. So I found a recipe and have been force feeding her for the past 4 weeks, what else can I do. What could be wrong. I saw that some poison ivy on the other side of the fence was eaten, could be it. She starting to stand on her legs but only for a few minutes at a time. Still won’t eat on her own.
If she won’t eat and drink and just tries to sit all the time, she might be broody. https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/hen-broodiness-solutions/
I always add probiotics to whatever I am feeding a sick critter….2 or 4 legs. I also always add a bit of garlic in it… Just my two cents.
We have an organic farm. I like your idea of using natural and nourishing foods for a sick animal, but I would never feed a chicken eggs from their own species. Biodynamically and holistically, that chicken is done with that egg when it comes from her body. Her body is putting that egg into a form for the outside world, not for her ingestion. I think you would do just as well without the egg in the mix you do above. No need to cook anything.
I don’t want to sound like a cad, but our chickens just don’t get sick. Ours are fed organic grain, soaked in live whey and water, they are supplemented with kelp, and they are given our spent fat/gristle/bones/kitchen waste/fermenting waste and soured raw butter milk and raw skim milk on a daily basis. Even in the throws of winter, we don’t deal with illness.
It drives me batty when people proclaim that eggs are “vegetarian fed”. There’s your first clue that the eggs are lacking in nutrition. As you said, chickens are omnivores!
That said, a toad would definitely do it! In that case, our hen would either have gotten better or would have died, but we don’t have that issue here with poisonous frogs. Hawks.. now that’s a different story. Love everything you share with us! Thank you.
Hi! Why not also give it some powdered slippery elm bark mixed in water to a soft porridge? Or put it into the water together with some diatomaceous earth, which you can also spread in the coop or in the sand bath, to get rid of insects and bacteria in the plumes and in the stomach too?
Hi Sarah, We love this information. Thank you! We have backyard chickens and will be sure to try this with our next sick chicken. We did lose one recently. She was nearly 5yrs and I think she ate something moldy maybe? then I noticed her get sick and wasn’t able to pull her out of it. May she rest in peace. Anyway, for the recipe, what type of liver do you use? Beef? something else ? or do you give them chicken liver?
Liver, what a great idea! Out of my 4 hens, my favorite is Princess Sophia the First, a Buff Orpington, like yours in the pictures (I think, I’m no expert). She lays really, really well, and also happens to be the sweetest and most docile of our girls too. She is the only one that doesn’t run away from my 2 year old’s petting (my toddler named them, they are all Disney princesses).
Funny enough, I just gave Sophia a meal of scrambled eggs today to bribe her away from the nest. Poor gal is broody, and she doesn’t get that those eggs are neeeever going to hatch. 😛