Chickens blowing out their whole rear end ~warning pic

My husband and I have had chickens nearly our whole lives and have never really had any significant issues. This spring we ordered a new bath of chicks and they have just started laying in the last 4 weeks. Over the last week we have found more than one that is dead and appears to have blown out their entire rear end. Various breeds..this one is a leghorn, but we have lost two Americaunas and one Red Star the same way.

We check all of our chickens daily and there is nothing we can see that seems to be "off" until we find them dead..they appear to just blow out and drop dead in a single moment...while eating or even from a roost.

This chicken has what I think is yolk, around where the vent would have been. Although the others were so covered in blood that we couldn't see anything. (This chicken was dead at least 3 hours before we found it, the others were still "fresh" when we found them) I can't seem to capture it in photos, but I can see at least 2 separate yolks down inside of this chicken. We didn't examine the others as closely, because we just thought it was a fluke. Now we clearly have a pattern.

Help! We have no idea what this is or what to do about it

That is bizarre. Never heard of anything like that. By looking at the picture the first thing that comes to my mind is that a possum got it since they like to start eating from that end of the chicken.

Otherwise

No possum..we don't even have them up here. I know that this is not a predator issue...our chicken house is pretty tight and our dogs are in a pen around it. There is no way a predator is going past our two big dogs.

Oh and I should mention that on the other chickens it was clear from the blood pattern that whatever happened was internal...it honestly looked like a small bomb blew them up from the inside.

goatstafson I am so sorry to read of your loss

That is bizarre! I have not seen or heard of anything like it.

If it was just the one hen, I would lean towards a prolapsed vent kind of thing that the others may have pecked off or maybe even a lodged egg that had exploded, not that I have heard of that either; but more than one hen in a short period of time, doubtful at best.

At a stretch, I am wondering if it is not some sort of internal parasite? But you would think there would be others signs of illness.
Something wrong in the feed, causing a build up of gas?

To be honest, I am grabbing at straws here but definitely subscribing because I would like to know what others think.

Edited to add: ?? Poisoning of some sort. Any chance they have managed to get into some mouse or rat baits? Something caustic they are drinking?

I would definitely have a necropsy done. It is very strange. So sorry for your loss...

We have wormed them with Wazine and treated with Ivermectin..and gave them a good Seven dust. We did that after the first 2 deaths, before then last 2...3 weeks separated those deaths.

I have been doing daily checks for signs of egg binding. I had one that I suspected and did the whole bath thing...she laid that egg almost as soon as I got her into the water so I think I just jumped the gun in my worry and she wasn't really egg bound

goatstafson said:

We have wormed them with Wazine and treated with Ivermectin..and gave them a good Seven dust. We did that after the first 2 deaths, before then last 2...3 weeks separated those deaths.

I have been doing daily checks for signs of egg binding. I had one that I suspected and did the whole bath thing...she laid that egg almost as soon as I got her into the water so I think I just jumped the gun in my worry and she wasn't really egg bound

Click to expand...

Wazine only treats roundworms. Ivermectin is for treating parasites (lice, mites, and some internal infections caused from parasites) and is not an effective wormer. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2816174

You may want to go with a better wormer such as Valbazen or Safeguard that contains (fenbendazol). They will treat most worms but not tapeworms. Just because you don't see worms in the poop does not necessarily mean they don't have them. Many worms are so small (such as hair worms) that you cannot see.

Another possibility could be Flukes. Read about it here:
http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/p...s_of_poultry/fluke_infections_in_poultry.html

"Light infections without signs appear in ducks and other birds with a functional bursa. In gallinaceous birds, heavy infections in the oviduct cause inappetence, droopiness, weight loss, calcareous cloacal discharge, depressed egg production, and an increase in soft-shelled eggs. Lesions range from mild inflammation to distention or rupture of the oviduct; death may result. Diagnosis by fecal examination is unreliable, because fluke eggs are not consistently present. Adult flukes may appear in the bird's eggs or be found in the oviduct on necropsy."

There is no licensed treatment for flukes in poultry so I don't know what could be tried. I'm not saying this is the problem. Only a necropsy can tell for certain. Just putting the information out there for you to check into.

Did you ever find out what caused this? I have full grown Peking ducks with some young chickens. I’ve lost 2 Peking ducks to this same rear end problem. One I found still alive and we don’t see other chickens trying to peck him or anything. The chickens are fine. I figure if it was predators they would go after the young small chickens. Odd that the big ducks are being attacked.

Ldvknight said:

Did you ever find out what caused this? I have full grown Peking ducks with some young chickens. I’ve lost 2 Peking ducks to this same rear end problem. One I found still alive and we don’t see other chickens trying to peck him or anything. The chickens are fine. I figure if it was predators they would go after the young small chickens. Odd that the big ducks are being attacked.

Click to expand...

Welcome to BYC. Overcrowding, boredom, and too little protein in the diet can lead to vent pecking. You may not observe it, but it happens, and can become a bad habit. That may not be what is happening in your flock, but I would suspect that or a small predator. Pictures are welcome.