hannah and the chickens
In the Brooder
Hello everyone!
On Sunday I found one of my one year old Bielefelder hens with a prolapsed vent. I'm a relatively new chicken keeper as they are my first chickens (bought them around March last year), so I did not want to treat this on my own without professional help. Therefore, I made some calls to find a vet who knew how to treat chickens and was open on a sunday. Luckily, I found a clinic (even though it's a fourty minute drive) where they were able to help my chicken.
The most common treatment I've read about on here is to try to put the vent back and hope it stays in. Because the prolapse was rather big, the vet said that that wouldn't work and gave me the options of putting her down or trying surgery with the risk of my hen dying because of the anaesthesia. The surgery was expensive and I wouldn't have been able to pay for it myself but my mum stepped in and offered to pay the bills for the treatment so we decided to risk the surgery. My chicken made it, I was able to take her home around two hours later and she even ate and drank something the same evening!
Today I took her to the clinic again to get her checked out once more since the x-ray they took on Sunday showed that there was still one egg inside of her. The vet said that luckily, the egg is still not at the front and therefore decided that even though it will be uncomfortable for her, it is better to not disrupt the stitches and not get the egg out today but instead gave me another appointment for Thursday morning.
So right now, I have her back at home, isolated in a dog crate inside the chicken coop. She gets antibiotics once a day and got an anti-inflammatory from the vet today, too. I can tell she is not at her highest (obviously) but she also seems active enough and eats and drinks on her own. We'll have to wait til Thursday and hope that everything healed enough until then that getting the egg out won't cause her vent to prolapse again.
The questions I have right now are as follows: Does anyone on here have experience with a prolapsed vent and surgery recovery like this? Did your chicken make a full recovery? And also, what can cause a prolapsed vent? Many sources I read said that oftentimes a misshapen or too big egg will cause the vent to prolapse, but my chicken only ever had normal eggs and the egg visible in the x-ray is normal in size and position as well. Are there infections (parsites, bacteria...) that might cause a prolapsed vent? The vet thinks that an infection is the most likely cause and since he is a well known expert with birds I trust that that might be true but it still makes me wonder since in all the time reading about chicken health, I've never come across a parasite or an infection causing a prolapsed vent.
I feel really helpless right now, I wish I knew the cause for this. Also, seeing my chicken this sick just makes me doubt myself- I do everything as best as I know and I deeply care for my chickens but apparently I still missed something important for it to get this bad for her. I just hope she doesn't get worse until Thursday and that the vet is able to figure out what was the cause.
I'd be grateful for any ideas about causes (apart from egg size and shape since that can be ruled out) or for stories about your experiences in treating chickens with a prolapsed vent!
On Sunday I found one of my one year old Bielefelder hens with a prolapsed vent. I'm a relatively new chicken keeper as they are my first chickens (bought them around March last year), so I did not want to treat this on my own without professional help. Therefore, I made some calls to find a vet who knew how to treat chickens and was open on a sunday. Luckily, I found a clinic (even though it's a fourty minute drive) where they were able to help my chicken.
The most common treatment I've read about on here is to try to put the vent back and hope it stays in. Because the prolapse was rather big, the vet said that that wouldn't work and gave me the options of putting her down or trying surgery with the risk of my hen dying because of the anaesthesia. The surgery was expensive and I wouldn't have been able to pay for it myself but my mum stepped in and offered to pay the bills for the treatment so we decided to risk the surgery. My chicken made it, I was able to take her home around two hours later and she even ate and drank something the same evening!
Today I took her to the clinic again to get her checked out once more since the x-ray they took on Sunday showed that there was still one egg inside of her. The vet said that luckily, the egg is still not at the front and therefore decided that even though it will be uncomfortable for her, it is better to not disrupt the stitches and not get the egg out today but instead gave me another appointment for Thursday morning.
So right now, I have her back at home, isolated in a dog crate inside the chicken coop. She gets antibiotics once a day and got an anti-inflammatory from the vet today, too. I can tell she is not at her highest (obviously) but she also seems active enough and eats and drinks on her own. We'll have to wait til Thursday and hope that everything healed enough until then that getting the egg out won't cause her vent to prolapse again.
The questions I have right now are as follows: Does anyone on here have experience with a prolapsed vent and surgery recovery like this? Did your chicken make a full recovery? And also, what can cause a prolapsed vent? Many sources I read said that oftentimes a misshapen or too big egg will cause the vent to prolapse, but my chicken only ever had normal eggs and the egg visible in the x-ray is normal in size and position as well. Are there infections (parsites, bacteria...) that might cause a prolapsed vent? The vet thinks that an infection is the most likely cause and since he is a well known expert with birds I trust that that might be true but it still makes me wonder since in all the time reading about chicken health, I've never come across a parasite or an infection causing a prolapsed vent.
I feel really helpless right now, I wish I knew the cause for this. Also, seeing my chicken this sick just makes me doubt myself- I do everything as best as I know and I deeply care for my chickens but apparently I still missed something important for it to get this bad for her. I just hope she doesn't get worse until Thursday and that the vet is able to figure out what was the cause.
I'd be grateful for any ideas about causes (apart from egg size and shape since that can be ruled out) or for stories about your experiences in treating chickens with a prolapsed vent!