I noticed my 3 yr old Black Australorp a few days ago with a bit of poop clumped around her vent feathers, and then yesterday she was standing up next to the coop looking weak and in pain. I thought maybe she was egg bound so was planning to soak her this morning but when I went to let them out, I saw that her vent was CAKED with poop and she was also drooling brownish liquid from her beak. She was so weak and looked almost dead, and neither her abdomen nor her crop felt distended.....also I could not palpate anything hard externally like a stuck egg, etc. But her keel was very prominent and she was much thinner than she looked.
So I put her in a cat carrier with warm bedding and put her in the garage so I could look into what might be going on. I went inside and sadly she died within the hour.
As soon as she passed, cloudy mustard yellow/tan liquid started oozing from her vent, and I digitally checked for an egg, or egg parts etc. but felt none. I had a scalpel, so I kind of just incised the vent, and first clear yellow (ascite like) fluid poured out, then more tan stuff.
Her crop also felt sort of buggy, so I poked a small hole and the same foul smelling dark tan liquid poured out with lots of undigested food and some grain, corn & hay/grass.
I know this isn’t a lot of info but this was all the time and energy I could give to investigate the cause of death and I mostly want to make sure whatever killed her is not a flock issue, like parasites etc.
Does anyone have some insight about 1) normal vs abnormal crop contents in terms of smell etc and 2) the yellow fluid from low abdomen or near vent - is this expected? I’ve had 2 chickens over the years with ascites that I had to drain every month-ish toward the ends of their lives, but their bellies were a very obvious indicator of the need to drain them. This was not the case here.
The last pic is just to show how she was standing last night. ☹
So I put her in a cat carrier with warm bedding and put her in the garage so I could look into what might be going on. I went inside and sadly she died within the hour.
As soon as she passed, cloudy mustard yellow/tan liquid started oozing from her vent, and I digitally checked for an egg, or egg parts etc. but felt none. I had a scalpel, so I kind of just incised the vent, and first clear yellow (ascite like) fluid poured out, then more tan stuff.
Her crop also felt sort of buggy, so I poked a small hole and the same foul smelling dark tan liquid poured out with lots of undigested food and some grain, corn & hay/grass.
I know this isn’t a lot of info but this was all the time and energy I could give to investigate the cause of death and I mostly want to make sure whatever killed her is not a flock issue, like parasites etc.
Does anyone have some insight about 1) normal vs abnormal crop contents in terms of smell etc and 2) the yellow fluid from low abdomen or near vent - is this expected? I’ve had 2 chickens over the years with ascites that I had to drain every month-ish toward the ends of their lives, but their bellies were a very obvious indicator of the need to drain them. This was not the case here.
The last pic is just to show how she was standing last night. ☹
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