MooseLovesTwigs
Chirping
Type of bird: Serama chicken (with silkied feathers), very small around 12oz weight, 1+ year old.
Behavior: Picking with beak at vent area and beak has occasionally been bloody. Otherwise she's been pretty normal until today she seemed just a tiny bit more lethargic than average but still eating/drinking normally.
The actual description of the emergency/injury/whatever it is: When I inspected her vent up close I saw what I thought was a clump of poop stuck to her feathers but after soaking her in a Epsom salt water bath I noticed a significant amount of blood coming from her vent area. On closer inspection there was a dark, black colored mass that is partly a blood clot, some of her poop, and possibly some of her actual internal tissue (as in flesh). The first time this happened it was a rather small mass and after soaking her in a bath and cleaning the area I dried her off and put her back in her coop. I checked on it daily and after 3 or so days the mass had receded into her body or gone away somehow so I thought it was gone and must've been a prolapse (this was a guess). She seemed to be fine for about 2 months (until now). Also, I limited her light to less than 10 hours a day because I thought it might be a prolapse and wanted to give her reproductive system some time to heal. Anyways, fast forward to today when I decided to give her another bath since I thought she had some poop built up near her vent and was picking at the area again (this has happened without any bloody masses before so I assumed nothing was wrong besides that). When I looked, though, there was a larger amount of poop than I was expecting and after putting her in the water and gently trying to clean the area I noticed a significant amount of blood coming from the area. That is when I felt the actual mass attached to her vent area and realized that it was like the first time but this time it was larger (worse). Like the first time, it seemed to be a part of her body, not just poop. I called someone to help me clean the area and inspect her and was then able to do my best to remove any poop that wasn't part of the mass of flesh and soaked her for a little bit. The bleeding had only happened when I first put her in the water and luckily had stopped long before I dried her off.
Timeframe: This has happened before about 2 months ago and visibly went back to normal (on the outside at least) after treatment with Epsom salt baths. Now it's happening again and I'm treating it in the same way as before but feel like I'm just guessing as to what the issue is.
Other birds are not exhibiting similar symptoms (thankfully).
She has been eating/drinking normally (if not voraciously) throughout her whole life, now included.
Poop looks normal other than that it has sometimes stuck to her feathers around her vent.
Treatments so far: I've done Epsom salt soaks to clean the area. I've reduced amount of time she get's sunlight to less than 10 hours/day until a few weeks ago when I went back to normal daylight cycles. I've used a very small amount of an herbal powder directly on the bleeding part to help stop bleeding/pain/prevent further infection (it's made of mainly Osha Root (ligusticum porterii)) which is something I've used on myself and my animals for my whole life (although never for something quite like this). I've also been giving them a very small amount of oil of oregano in their water for general wellness but this is not specific to this injury or whatever it is.
Intent of treatment: I would love nothing more than for her to get better but I live many hours from any poultry vets and have little money (if any) to pay for their help even if there was one closer than that. For that reason I intend to see if anyone else knows more about what I'm facing here so that I can decide what there is to be done or if she is beyond anything I can do. I still don't really know what this even is, I've thought it could be a prolapse or other reproductive system related issue but I've also worried that it could be a tumor/disease or something more like that.
Where she lives: Since she can't survive the Colorado winters outside with our other chickens and since she is more of a pet than an egg producer she (and her sister) lives indoors in a large watering trough converted into a coop with hemp bedding that is right next to some large windows. She also gets outside into a hawk-proof chicken run/coop (a lightly used Eglu we found on craigslist) most days that are over 40 degrees F and that is where we plan to keep them during the summer.
Anyways, if anyone has any idea what this is or how you'd go about treating it then I would be very grateful to know about it. I'm worried that there won't be anything I can do to help her but will be glad just to know what may have happened. I'm not sure how I can sensor the pictures from unwary eyes or I would but beware they are very graphic and if there is a way to do this please let me know so I can. The pictures aren't very bright/clear but they were the best I could take with the sun going down fast and my helper needed to leave as well as the chicken was getting sick of being held/wet. I will try to reply as soon as I can to anyone here but I'm likely headed to bed soon and it may be later tomorrow before I can check up on this due to it still being during the week.
Thanks for taking the time to help,
- L
Behavior: Picking with beak at vent area and beak has occasionally been bloody. Otherwise she's been pretty normal until today she seemed just a tiny bit more lethargic than average but still eating/drinking normally.
The actual description of the emergency/injury/whatever it is: When I inspected her vent up close I saw what I thought was a clump of poop stuck to her feathers but after soaking her in a Epsom salt water bath I noticed a significant amount of blood coming from her vent area. On closer inspection there was a dark, black colored mass that is partly a blood clot, some of her poop, and possibly some of her actual internal tissue (as in flesh). The first time this happened it was a rather small mass and after soaking her in a bath and cleaning the area I dried her off and put her back in her coop. I checked on it daily and after 3 or so days the mass had receded into her body or gone away somehow so I thought it was gone and must've been a prolapse (this was a guess). She seemed to be fine for about 2 months (until now). Also, I limited her light to less than 10 hours a day because I thought it might be a prolapse and wanted to give her reproductive system some time to heal. Anyways, fast forward to today when I decided to give her another bath since I thought she had some poop built up near her vent and was picking at the area again (this has happened without any bloody masses before so I assumed nothing was wrong besides that). When I looked, though, there was a larger amount of poop than I was expecting and after putting her in the water and gently trying to clean the area I noticed a significant amount of blood coming from the area. That is when I felt the actual mass attached to her vent area and realized that it was like the first time but this time it was larger (worse). Like the first time, it seemed to be a part of her body, not just poop. I called someone to help me clean the area and inspect her and was then able to do my best to remove any poop that wasn't part of the mass of flesh and soaked her for a little bit. The bleeding had only happened when I first put her in the water and luckily had stopped long before I dried her off.
Timeframe: This has happened before about 2 months ago and visibly went back to normal (on the outside at least) after treatment with Epsom salt baths. Now it's happening again and I'm treating it in the same way as before but feel like I'm just guessing as to what the issue is.
Other birds are not exhibiting similar symptoms (thankfully).
She has been eating/drinking normally (if not voraciously) throughout her whole life, now included.
Poop looks normal other than that it has sometimes stuck to her feathers around her vent.
Treatments so far: I've done Epsom salt soaks to clean the area. I've reduced amount of time she get's sunlight to less than 10 hours/day until a few weeks ago when I went back to normal daylight cycles. I've used a very small amount of an herbal powder directly on the bleeding part to help stop bleeding/pain/prevent further infection (it's made of mainly Osha Root (ligusticum porterii)) which is something I've used on myself and my animals for my whole life (although never for something quite like this). I've also been giving them a very small amount of oil of oregano in their water for general wellness but this is not specific to this injury or whatever it is.
Intent of treatment: I would love nothing more than for her to get better but I live many hours from any poultry vets and have little money (if any) to pay for their help even if there was one closer than that. For that reason I intend to see if anyone else knows more about what I'm facing here so that I can decide what there is to be done or if she is beyond anything I can do. I still don't really know what this even is, I've thought it could be a prolapse or other reproductive system related issue but I've also worried that it could be a tumor/disease or something more like that.
Where she lives: Since she can't survive the Colorado winters outside with our other chickens and since she is more of a pet than an egg producer she (and her sister) lives indoors in a large watering trough converted into a coop with hemp bedding that is right next to some large windows. She also gets outside into a hawk-proof chicken run/coop (a lightly used Eglu we found on craigslist) most days that are over 40 degrees F and that is where we plan to keep them during the summer.
Anyways, if anyone has any idea what this is or how you'd go about treating it then I would be very grateful to know about it. I'm worried that there won't be anything I can do to help her but will be glad just to know what may have happened. I'm not sure how I can sensor the pictures from unwary eyes or I would but beware they are very graphic and if there is a way to do this please let me know so I can. The pictures aren't very bright/clear but they were the best I could take with the sun going down fast and my helper needed to leave as well as the chicken was getting sick of being held/wet. I will try to reply as soon as I can to anyone here but I'm likely headed to bed soon and it may be later tomorrow before I can check up on this due to it still being during the week.
Thanks for taking the time to help,
- L
