Advice Wanted: Prolapsed Vent Follow-Up Treatment

[skullgrrrl]

I have a medical question that I'm hoping someone can advise me on.

This is Corazon, who experienced a major prolapsed vent on Sunday. I managed to get most of it back in at the time. She's crated on her own, eating, drinking and in good spirits. I'm given her calcium rich foods, clipped the feathers around her vent, cleaned her vent and applied an astringent daily.

My concern is her vent seems to have lost its elasticity, so although the prolapse is much better her vent is not able to totally hold it in.

Last year I dealt with an egg bound hen when the egg was actually stuck partway out her vent. I was able to break and extricate it, but she was left with a permanently distended vent which meant she dribbled poop all the time and was vulnerable to infection like Salpingitis or flystrike.

Can anyone suggest what I can do to help her vent tighten up and go back to normal? Will it ever get better or once stretched that much, even briefly, is she going to end up with a floppy vent?

I've heard of people who loosely sew the vent edges together, but I don't see that as a solution.

The photos were taken Sunday, Monday and today - there is improvement in the prolapse, but her vent hasn't gotten better.

 

[ButtonquailGirl14]

I'm watching too.. after I fixed my hens prolapse her bum had dribbled poo ever since..

 

[cottagecheese]

A series of fortunate events convinced me that God makes the best astringent and antiseptic agent in the form of white oak bark. The hen recovered completely, still lays daily and poops normally. If you have any questions, I'll be here to answer them.

Cutting and pasting now:

Bridget the hen has been plagued by serial prolapses, on average every two months. Her fourth one happened one Thursday afternoon and I applied unrefined coconut oil, which had cured the first three. But I had a bad feeling because a good portion was hanging out, almost halfway to the floor. She was straining every ten, fifteen minutes trying but not being able to poop. Friday, almost 24 hrs later, surprisingly there was absolutely no improvement, the coconut oil had done nothing this time. Bridget is very strong for a chicken and I was holding her gently as I was looking at her, so when she decided to take me by surprise and jump out of my arms I couldn't catch her. She landed hurting her prolapse and started to bleed. I was feeling like crap so decided to go for a walk. Not far from home, the branch of a tree came into my line of vision. It still had a few dry leaves clinging to it in the dead of winter. Going back a little bit, all these close calls with the prolapses had motivated me to play a little with google, so this is how I was aware of a little something (maybe cockatiel) who had been treated with white oak bark powder and had recovered. Being prejudiced against herbal remedies I discarded the idea. This tree though...was for sure an oak, because oaks are the only ones that still keep a few leaves on until spring. It also had a whitish, light grey bark, while the other trees had dark grey barks. So this was actually a white oak. Right, this is worth a try, so I went back home and returned with a knife and cut a little piece, not too much because trees can get sick really easily. Did a new search, this time about how the bark should be prepared. Gentle heating concentrates healing volatile oils in the bark but destroys the volatile oils once the bark has been powdered. Very well then. With the stove on medium low I held the bark in my hand above the burner, thinking that if my fingers can tolerate it, then it's gentle enough. I made sure that the bark is exposed to the heat on both sides, and... the kitchen filled with an unbelievable aroma, spicy and very pleasant. I broke the bark into coffee bean sized pieces and cleaned the coffee grinder really well with a slightly dampened paper towel, making sure that no traces of coffee remain. Ground up the bark as finely as possible, melted some coconut oil in a big spoon and waited for it to cool to body temperature, because, remember, the powder should not be heated. Made a slurry with as high a proportion of powder as possible combined with enough coconut oil to keep it fluid. Because, unlike the first three times when it had cured, this time the coconut oil had dropped the ball and was demoted to second violin. This time I had a helper holding Bridget securely and I started to gently dab the (body temperature) concoction on her prolapse. A very good sign: she stopped
struggling immediately and the stuff stuck to her well. This was a grotesque prolapse, practically everything was hanging out, except for intestines and I gently dabbed the stuff making sure to cover very well the prolapse and the skin around it. See you in the morning, Bridget. Saturday morning, a very beautiful sight greeted me: two enormous, egg-sized poos. The poor thing was finally able to evacuate, after 36 hrs. Half of the prolapse was back in and the color was lighter, not as angry as before. Two more applications of the slurry on Sat morning and Sat evening and poops all day long some of them egg-sized. Sunday morning (very fitting) the prolapse was gone. I kept her in the darkness except for six hrs daily, for a few days to stop the laying so her body could take a break.
Something remarkable - for weeks and weeks after, my coffee retained a pleasant undertone of oak. Very powerful, those volatile oils.
So why did it work? From what I could gather, because of tannin and quercin, very good astringents. (An astringent is a substance which causes biological tissue to contract .) The bark is also antiseptic, there was no infection. All oaks are medicinal and their bark contains tannins and I have a suspicion that in an emergency any oak will help, if a white oak can't be found.

 

[skullgrrrl]

I'm watching too.. after I fixed my hens prolapse her bum had dribbled poo ever since..

A distended vent leaves them vulnerable to infections like Salpingitis or flystrike in the summer. I had one like that and it was awful (dripping poop which was really hard to clean).

 

[skullgrrrl]

A series of fortunate events convinced me that God makes the best astringent and antiseptic agent in the form of white oak bark. The hen recovered completely, still lays daily and poops normally. If you have any questions, I'll be here to answer them.

Cutting and pasting now:

Bridget the hen has been plagued by serial prolapses, on average every two months. Her fourth one happened one Thursday afternoon and I applied unrefined coconut oil, which had cured the first three. But I had a bad feeling because a good portion was hanging out, almost halfway to the floor. She was straining every ten, fifteen minutes trying but not being able to poop. Friday, almost 24 hrs later, surprisingly there was absolutely no improvement, the coconut oil had done nothing this time. Bridget is very strong for a chicken and I was holding her gently as I was looking at her, so when she decided to take me by surprise and jump out of my arms I couldn't catch her. She landed hurting her prolapse and started to bleed. I was feeling like crap so decided to go for a walk. Not far from home, the branch of a tree came into my line of vision. It still had a few dry leaves clinging to it in the dead of winter. Going back a little bit, all these close calls with the prolapses had motivated me to play a little with google, so this is how I was aware of a little something (maybe cockatiel) who had been treated with white oak bark powder and had recovered. Being prejudiced against herbal remedies I discarded the idea. This tree though...was for sure an oak, because oaks are the only ones that still keep a few leaves on until spring. It also had a whitish, light grey bark, while the other trees had dark grey barks. So this was actually a white oak. Right, this is worth a try, so I went back home and returned with a knife and cut a little piece, not too much because trees can get sick really easily. Did a new search, this time about how the bark should be prepared. Gentle heating concentrates healing volatile oils in the bark but destroys the volatile oils once the bark has been powdered. Very well then. With the stove on medium low I held the bark in my hand above the burner, thinking that if my fingers can tolerate it, then it's gentle enough. I made sure that the bark is exposed to the heat on both sides, and... the kitchen filled with an unbelievable aroma, spicy and very pleasant. I broke the bark into coffee bean sized pieces and cleaned the coffee grinder really well with a slightly dampened paper towel, making sure that no traces of coffee remain. Ground up the bark as finely as possible, melted some coconut oil in a big spoon and waited for it to cool to body temperature, because, remember, the powder should not be heated. Made a slurry with as high a proportion of powder as possible combined with enough coconut oil to keep it fluid. Because, unlike the first three times when it had cured, this time the coconut oil had dropped the ball and was demoted to second violin. This time I had a helper holding Bridget securely and I started to gently dab the (body temperature) concoction on her prolapse. A very good sign: she stopped
struggling immediately and the stuff stuck to her well. This was a grotesque prolapse, practically everything was hanging out, except for intestines and I gently dabbed the stuff making sure to cover very well the prolapse and the skin around it. See you in the morning, Bridget. Saturday morning, a very beautiful sight greeted me: two enormous, egg-sized poos. The poor thing was finally able to evacuate, after 36 hrs. Half of the prolapse was back in and the color was lighter, not as angry as before. Two more applications of the slurry on Sat morning and Sat evening and poops all day long some of them egg-sized. Sunday morning (very fitting) the prolapse was gone. I kept her in the darkness except for six hrs daily, for a few days to stop the laying so her body could take a break.
Something remarkable - for weeks and weeks after, my coffee retained a pleasant undertone of oak. Very powerful, those volatile oils.
So why did it work? From what I could gather, because of tannin and quercin, very good astringents. (An astringent is a substance which causes biological tissue to contract .) The bark is also antiseptic, there was no infection. All oaks are medicinal and their bark contains tannins and I have a suspicion that in an emergency any oak will help, if a white oak can't be found.

I've been using witch hazel which is also an astringent.

 

[ButtonquailGirl14]

A distended vent leaves them vulnerable to infections like Salpingitis or flystrike in the summer. I had one like that and it was awful (dripping poop which was really hard to clean).

yeah.. someone mentioned that when she got it pecked, it could have injured the sphincter..

 

[cottagecheese]

When my hen had her first prolapse, after I got over the shock, I started to look what could be done. The first place was advising the 'culling treatment', really, some people have blocks of cement instead of hearts. Luckily, there was someone in the comments asking the owner of the blog to change the recommendation to using coconut oil because their hen had recovered without problems. I had good quality, cold pressed coconut oil in the fridge, I used it after rinsing her with water, and in the morning everything was back to normal. The fourth time is described above. It's best to try to harvest fresh, but amazon sells the white oak bark powder for two bucks I believe The ready made powder should not be heated as I explained. It would probably work, only slower than fresh off the tree.

 

[sueiris]

I've been using witch hazel which is also an astringent.

did that work for you? The white oak powder sounds interesting, but witch hazel easier....