5 year old bantam with milky urates and little poop

[Clcatto]

Hi all,
I have a vet appointment in a week for my 5 yr old bantam Cochin who is ill, but I’m worried she won’t make it until then so I’d love some help troubleshooting. (Vets are so backed up that I can’t get her in anywhere any earlier)

background: large coop but free-ranges in our fenced yard with her sisters. Over the past few days I noticed her poops weren’t as frequent and she was acting more lethargic so I’ve had her inside for the past two days.

crop: doesn’t seem to be emptying overnight. I’ve been massaging it and I don’t think it’s sour or impacted - her digestive system just doesn’t seem to be moving normally. She was eating fairly well up until today (mashed pellets, mealworms, finely chopped kale), but I was vacillating between limiting food in case her crop was impacted or letting her eat as much as she could to try to get her system moving. I’ve been syringe feeding her a bit of water with electrolytes (not forcing it so she doesn’t aspirate). It’s not overly full right now, but again, doesn’t seem to be emptying very fast (or at all anymore).

overall: ruffled, lethargic, a little unsteady on her feet. I’m not seeing mites/lice, but gave her a light dusting of poultry dust. Her comb/waddle seem to be losing a bit of color - not completely pale but not super red (I’m not sure if it’s ever been super red but I detect a slight bit of yellow). Not seeing any worms in anyone’s droppings. No respiratory distress.

laying: she hasn’t come into lay yet this season (in fact, only one of my four has), but I don’t know if that’s because of her age, an underlying illness, etc. She doesn’t seem egg bound and her abdomen doesn’t seem swollen or hard (she’s teeny though, so it’s hard to tell).

droppings: they were small and infrequent yesterday, but what she dropped looked fairly normal. Now I’m not seeing much in the way of poop, but wet and milky urates as if little to no food is passing through. I’m trying to keep her hydrated so I’m not sure if that’s part of it.

Thanks for your help/ideas. I lost my 11.5 year old best friend hen a few months back (in part because once again vets were backed up) and I’m at my wits end trying to figure out what’s wrong without having the benefit of a vet to look at her.

 

[cooingdove]

hi and welcome to BYC, your poor hen, i'm not a pro in chicken disease, have you seperated her? first thing i would do is set her up in a box in a warm, dry, and calm place away from the other chooks. then maybe do a little exam, wich i guess you have already done. my guess would be she has worms, maybe you could give her a little crushed garlic while waiting for the vet?

 

[cooingdove]

@MysteryChicken @Wee Farmer Sarah @riss got any ideas?

 

[MysteryChicken]

Maybe she maybe abit constipated, & maybe having some liver issues based on the yellowing of the skin you mentioned.

Coconut oil will help pass food, & slicken her insides. She'll still require some crop massages though. Best to give the coconut oil as harden chunks.

I have a couple old bantam hens that just turned 6 years old this month. One stopped laying a couple years ago, & one is still laying.

 

[riss]

I would try to keep her hydrated and maybe even mix some grit in there cause she could have trouble digesting

 

[Clcatto]

Thanks all for the feedback. She is inside getting lots of love and quiet time. I’ve been giving her water with electrolytes and a bit of pellets mashed up. She’s definitely weaker today so I’m not sure if I should be giving her a dewormer while she’s still so weak (I have both pig swig and ivermectin pour over).
She’s had a bit of coconut oil and her crop is softer - things seem to be moving out of her crop very very slowly, but I’m not seeing a whole lot of poop (understandable since she’s not eating a whole lot). She did eat a few pieces of scratch this morning, so I probably should get some grit in her. I’ve been giving her a few days of clavamox (what my vet has prescribed me in the last) just in case there’s something else going on inside, but that’s always a concern in case it slows down their system. It’s so frustrating when there are no obvious answers to go on (which seems to usually be the case with hens)

 

[HiEverybirdy]

Hi @Clcatto - did you figure out how to proceed? I came across this thread researching a chicken mystery of our own and wanted to say I would've de-wormed in this case, probably with Safeguard. However, if you can, find a vet who can do a fecal analysis. Even if they don't treat poultry, many vets will run that test for $14-$30, and it can be a literal lifesaver in some of these mystery cases.

We had hen with the same symptoms. After spinning my wheels as she got worse, I ran her poop to the vet and begged them to test it, which they did, and they found roundworms. 24 hours after her first treatment (which cost $7 for the entire flock, btw), she began to turn around, and the other weird poops in the coop cleared up, too.

We never saw a worm. From what I've seen, it's common for them to have toxic worm loads without you seeing any worms in poop. I hope you and your birds are doing okay. Hugs your way.

 

[Clcatto]

Update: Sadly Dottie passed on Thursday April 1. I ended up taking her to an emergency vet on a Wednesday to stabilize her with fluids until I could get her into her regular avian vet on Friday morning (I begged them to get her in ASAP but that was the soonest I could get in....so frustrating). The emergency vet took x-rays and misdiagnosed regular grit in her gizzard as some sort of foreign material that was resulting in shock and “jaundice” (she was losing color, clearly anemic and getting yellow). I’m relieved they didn’t try to do a lavage or operate as that turned out to not be the solution. I was really hopeful she would make it to her Friday am appointment but sadly her body gave out Thursday night. I asked her regular vet to do a necropsy and here’s what she found:
She had severe anemia, although the vet couldn’t pinpoint the cause (it wasn’t worms). She didn’t think that it was due to a traumatic injury and thought that it might be due to a new, insidious blood-sucking mite that only comes out at night (and doesn’t stay on the hen) that has turned up in the Portland, OR area. Dottie had been suffering from anemia for awhile and her liver and gall bladder were extremely large. Her system had shut down and her crop wasn’t moving food through by the end (again, I noticed things were backing up earlier in the week, but couldn’t get her system to start up and couldn’t get her into a vet in a timely manner...I had called at least 7, including a livestock vet who I had been consulting with).

My vet said she would have put her on oxygen for the anemia (even though she wasn’t breathing heavily) and would have given her iron and tried to get her crop/gizzard moving (she said she sometimes uses apple juice). Had Dottie held on until her appointment I don’t know if she could have been saved, but this certainly underscores the great value of avian vets (there are so few around my area) with an amazing depth of knowledge. I don’t blame the other vets because they tried their best, but they just don’t know birds. My vet is amazing, just overworked and overbooked and it’s so very sad when you can’t get an appointment in time. I’m really missing Dottie.

 

[HiEverybirdy]

So sorry about Dottie. She looked like a lovely hen.

Thank you for sharing that detailed account. It's informative and sure to help others in the future. Always interesting to hear about the journey with vets and what a necropsy reveals. And you're right about the value of avian vets.