Spotting a Sick Chicken

Daily checks, parasites and when to call a vet

5 minIntermediateUpdated 2026-10-23 Spotting a Sick Chicken

You will learn

Run a two-minute daily health check on a flock
Recognise red mite, lice and worms early
Decide when a problem needs a vet or an official report

⚠️ Do not give any medicine without veterinary advice. Wrong drug, wrong dose and contaminated eggs all follow.

⚠️ Several birds sick or dying at once may be a notifiable disease. Report suspicion to your national animal health authority.

⚠️ Wear a fitted dust mask and eye protection when applying mite or louse powders.

Chickens hide illness

A sick bird in the wild is the one that gets eaten, so hens conceal symptoms until they are seriously unwell. That means you have to look on purpose rather than wait to notice. Every morning, count the flock, then watch for a full sixty seconds before you do anything. Healthy hens are busy: bright eyes, a red upright comb, clean nostrils, smooth feathers, a clean vent and immediate interest in food. The bird standing apart with her tail down, eyes half closed and feathers fluffed is telling you something, and so is the one that ignores breakfast.

💡 Feed time is the best diagnostic you have. Do the check before you scatter anything.

The hands-on check

Once a month, and whenever a bird looks off, lift each hen after dark when she is calm. Feel the keel bone down the middle of the breast: it should be padded either side, not a sharp ridge. Check the crop at night, when it should be full and soft, and at dawn, when it should be empty. Part the feathers around the vent and under the wings and look for fast-moving straw-coloured lice and cream egg clumps at the feather bases. Look at the leg scales for raised crusts, and the underside of each foot for a black scab.

💡 Weigh a bird on kitchen scales now and then. Weight loss shows up long before anything else does.

Red mite, the invisible one

Red mite lives in the coop, not on the bird, feeds at night and hides by day in perch ends and cracks, so you can have a heavy infestation and see nothing in daylight. The signs are hens reluctant to go in at dusk, pale combs, a sudden drop in laying and grey ash-like dust in joints. Confirm it by wiping under the perch ends with white kitchen paper: red smears mean blood, and blood means mites. Treat the building, not the bird: strip, scrub, dry, treat every crack, and repeat after five to seven days at least twice.

💡 Check weekly from spring onwards. In Portugal the population explodes from May and doubles in days.

Worms and droppings

Normal droppings are firm and brown with a white cap, plus one frothy brown caecal dropping a day. Gradual weight loss despite good appetite, a pale comb, loose droppings and a slow drop in laying point at internal worms, and a bird stretching her neck and gasping suggests gapeworm. Do not worm on a calendar and do not guess. Send a pooled droppings sample for a worm egg count twice a year and treat with a licensed poultry wormer only when the count justifies it. Blanket worming breeds resistance and unlicensed products have unknown egg withdrawal periods.

💡 Resting and rotating ground cuts worm burden more cheaply than any bottle. Worm eggs die in dry sunlit soil.

When it is a vet, and when it is a report

Call a vet the same day for laboured breathing, a hen straining in the nest and unable to pass an egg, visible red tissue outside the vent, a bird unable to stand, or bleeding you cannot stop with gentle pressure. Several birds sick or dying at once is different again: avian influenza and Newcastle disease are notifiable in most countries and you are legally required to report suspicion to the national authority. Find a poultry vet before you need one. Do not attempt injections, tube feeding or any surgical procedure you have not been trained to do.

💡 Every prescribed medicine has an egg withdrawal period. Ask for it in writing and note the date you can eat eggs again.

Check yourself

You suspect red mite but see nothing on the hens in daylight. What confirms it?

Red mite hides in the coop by day and feeds at night. Blood smeared on white paper wiped under the perch ends is the classic confirmation.

When should you worm a backyard flock?

Testing before treating avoids breeding resistance and unnecessary egg withdrawal periods. A worm egg count twice a year is the practical routine.

Several birds become sick or die within a couple of days. What is the correct first response?

Multiple birds affected at once raises the possibility of a notifiable disease such as avian influenza, which must be reported. Self-medicating is both ineffective and illegal in most places.

You feel a sharp ridge along a hen's breastbone. What does that suggest?

A healthy hen's keel is padded on both sides. A prominent sharp keel means muscle loss, often from parasites, illness or being kept off the feeder.

Try it for real: Set up a real health routine

Do the sixty-second watch before feeding, every morning for a week
Handle every bird one evening and record keel condition, vent, legs and feet
Wipe the perch ends with white paper and act if you see red
Find a vet who treats poultry and write the number on the coop door
Start a notebook for treatments, dates and egg withdrawal periods

🛒 Gear for this skill

🌽Chicken feederSee on Amazon →🌡️ThermometerSee on Amazon →🧤Work glovesSee on Amazon →🏡Self-sufficiency bookSee on Amazon →

See all the gear →

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Next lesson: The Chicken Keeper's Year →

Sources

Written and checked by the Human Skills team against the sources below. How we check our content

World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH)
RSPCA Chicken Welfare
DGAV Portugal

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