GracieKatt
Chirping
- Mar 18, 2021
- 24
- 36
- 66
Y’all this is Betty White and I’m trying to keep Betty White alive and I would love it if after reading this freaking novel (sorry) anyone could tell me what they think I’m dealing with and what else I can do.
My suspicions so far have been: fecal impaction, egg bound, salpingitis.
Wednesday evening she walked up to me and let me pick her up, which was the first really bad sign. My chickens run from me no matter how much I try to hand feed them. I brought her in and washed her dirty butt, she didn’t put up any fuss - bad sign 2.
As I’m handling her I notice she feels skinny. I feel around her abdomen and I feel what could be a couple of eggs, impacted poop, some kind of growth, or some combination of the above.
Her symptoms came on so fast. I gave her a bath and by this point she was
- lethargic, stumbling, head is beginning to droop.
- won’t eat scrambled eggs or anything
- pooping clear liquid that had NO smell
-later, pooping yellowish white liquid with bits in it.
I looked up videos on how to help an eggbound chicken and tried all that, no help.
I gloved up and lubed up and checked her vent. I felt a big bump inside the top that I don’t remember a chicken having. It wasn’t completely blocking the vent but seemed pretty much in the way.
I pulled back her opening a bit and I saw that the bump had a little pea-sized hole in it and whitish yellow stuff was poking out. Oh, no. YEP it was hard pus and it looked like a lash egg but was only the size, shape and almost color of a hard boiled egg YOLK. I dosed her with aspirin and poultry antibiotics, got the Vetericyn, q tips, tweezers, paper towels, etc etc, and removed the disgusting plug.
***I have no idea if where I removed it from was another duct that joins the cloaca or just a horrible abscess. I thought maybe it was blocking the oviduct but how could the oviduct be blocked by something only the size of a yolk? It came out with just a tiny bit of blood, I swabbed it out and got vetericyn all in there.
She spent the next 24 hours FLOPPY, can’t stand up, eyes closed but breathing. She still won’t eat but will drink like a champion if I put the dropper to her beak.
- I have been administering her water with tums, aspirin, antibiotics, ACV (just to try to help keep her crop from getting funky) and a little flaxseed oil for calories and laxative effects.
Her crop still had stuff in it even though she hadn’t eaten in at least 24 hours. I gently massaged it after getting more liquid in there.
- Yesterday I bathed her again and when I put my finger in the vent with some more veterycin I was able to get her to squirt out a bunch more stuff, it was yellowish white and full of bits of green.
- After basically pumping her full of that water mixture on the front end and veterycin on the other end, since yesterday she looks a bit better! She is actually sitting up a little and looking around, holding her head up and she turned herself 180 degrees and pooped liquid but BROWN poop two times!
She has plenty of strength in her neck to fight me when she doesn’t want to accept the medicated water, but still cannot stand up although she’s actually tried a few times.
I still feel those masses or eggs inside her abdomen.
The background if anyone cares to dig deeper:
A month or two ago, everyone had dirty butts. I found and treated poultry lice and everyone else’s butt went back to normal but Betty still had a dirty butt and a swollen abdomen so I bathed her, followed the vent gleet treatment protocol, the swelling went down and she continued acting totally normal for several weeks.
4 days ago I found Betty trying to sleep out in the yard in the evening and I thought this chicken is being rebellious and put her back, she walked into the coop like normal. Acted completely normal until 3 days ago.
No idea if she was laying recently, because several hens lay identical brown eggs.
Nobody else in our flock of 6 seems to be having any trouble. One silkie went broody and then stopped being broody like two months ago but hasn’t laid an egg since despite coming out of the coop every sand and eating, drinking and behaving normally, but that’s all I can think of.
I have no idea how she is still alive, she’s invested nothing but water, antibiotics, flaxseed oil, aspirin, tums, ACV and probiotics since Wednesday night, but she’s still kind of just sitting there looking around so I’m going to keep trying to see if she can recover but am perfectly willing to end it quickly if she cannot possibly recover.
My suspicions so far have been: fecal impaction, egg bound, salpingitis.
Wednesday evening she walked up to me and let me pick her up, which was the first really bad sign. My chickens run from me no matter how much I try to hand feed them. I brought her in and washed her dirty butt, she didn’t put up any fuss - bad sign 2.
As I’m handling her I notice she feels skinny. I feel around her abdomen and I feel what could be a couple of eggs, impacted poop, some kind of growth, or some combination of the above.
Her symptoms came on so fast. I gave her a bath and by this point she was
- lethargic, stumbling, head is beginning to droop.
- won’t eat scrambled eggs or anything
- pooping clear liquid that had NO smell
-later, pooping yellowish white liquid with bits in it.
I looked up videos on how to help an eggbound chicken and tried all that, no help.
I gloved up and lubed up and checked her vent. I felt a big bump inside the top that I don’t remember a chicken having. It wasn’t completely blocking the vent but seemed pretty much in the way.
I pulled back her opening a bit and I saw that the bump had a little pea-sized hole in it and whitish yellow stuff was poking out. Oh, no. YEP it was hard pus and it looked like a lash egg but was only the size, shape and almost color of a hard boiled egg YOLK. I dosed her with aspirin and poultry antibiotics, got the Vetericyn, q tips, tweezers, paper towels, etc etc, and removed the disgusting plug.
***I have no idea if where I removed it from was another duct that joins the cloaca or just a horrible abscess. I thought maybe it was blocking the oviduct but how could the oviduct be blocked by something only the size of a yolk? It came out with just a tiny bit of blood, I swabbed it out and got vetericyn all in there.
She spent the next 24 hours FLOPPY, can’t stand up, eyes closed but breathing. She still won’t eat but will drink like a champion if I put the dropper to her beak.
- I have been administering her water with tums, aspirin, antibiotics, ACV (just to try to help keep her crop from getting funky) and a little flaxseed oil for calories and laxative effects.
Her crop still had stuff in it even though she hadn’t eaten in at least 24 hours. I gently massaged it after getting more liquid in there.
- Yesterday I bathed her again and when I put my finger in the vent with some more veterycin I was able to get her to squirt out a bunch more stuff, it was yellowish white and full of bits of green.
- After basically pumping her full of that water mixture on the front end and veterycin on the other end, since yesterday she looks a bit better! She is actually sitting up a little and looking around, holding her head up and she turned herself 180 degrees and pooped liquid but BROWN poop two times!
She has plenty of strength in her neck to fight me when she doesn’t want to accept the medicated water, but still cannot stand up although she’s actually tried a few times.
I still feel those masses or eggs inside her abdomen.
The background if anyone cares to dig deeper:
A month or two ago, everyone had dirty butts. I found and treated poultry lice and everyone else’s butt went back to normal but Betty still had a dirty butt and a swollen abdomen so I bathed her, followed the vent gleet treatment protocol, the swelling went down and she continued acting totally normal for several weeks.
4 days ago I found Betty trying to sleep out in the yard in the evening and I thought this chicken is being rebellious and put her back, she walked into the coop like normal. Acted completely normal until 3 days ago.
No idea if she was laying recently, because several hens lay identical brown eggs.
Nobody else in our flock of 6 seems to be having any trouble. One silkie went broody and then stopped being broody like two months ago but hasn’t laid an egg since despite coming out of the coop every sand and eating, drinking and behaving normally, but that’s all I can think of.
I have no idea how she is still alive, she’s invested nothing but water, antibiotics, flaxseed oil, aspirin, tums, ACV and probiotics since Wednesday night, but she’s still kind of just sitting there looking around so I’m going to keep trying to see if she can recover but am perfectly willing to end it quickly if she cannot possibly recover.
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