Another constipation thread--4 days of constipation despite remedies tried.

[TwoCrows]

Oh and if she is getting a lot of diarrhea, it's time to stop with both the molasses and the Dolculax. Both will cause runny stools, these were to get her "moving" again. Use your judgment on when to stop with these. The probiotics will help stabilize and get her poops in good order.

 

[-Chanticleer-]

Hello all,
I've got a 2-week old baby bantam Rhode Island Red female who's having persistent issues with constipation. This has been going on for about 4 days, and she is now smaller than her 4 growing sisters, none of whom have or have had any issues whatsoever. I also have 6 bantam Dominques who are doing fine.

Please see photos for pictures of her, her butt, her poop, her home, and her siblings.

She is pooping, but her poops are small and infrequent. She is usually hunched as if she wants to poop, and her vent is usually pulsing. She breathes heavy. Sometimes after I am able to get a bowel movement, she perks up for a while, but the constipation always returns, or perhaps just never clears up.

I have read read several threads here on chick constipation. Here are the details on what I have tried, and what my setup is.

1. We feed her chilled coconut oil chips regularly. She doesn't love them, but we offer them to her before we put wet food in the feeder for everyone. She usually only takes a few small bites. Minimum 3 pecks, sometimes as many as 10. This was only done 1-2 times per day in the beginning, but now we are trying to get the oil chips in her around 3-4 times per day.

2. I have been soaking her butt in epsom salt baths for 10-15 minutes a day when the coconut oil doesn't seem to be working. This has been on at least 3 of the last 4 days. This often induces a large bowel movement, but it did not do so today.

3. Yesterday I started gently applying olive oil to her vent with a q-tip. I do not insert the q-tip, and am instead gently applying as much as I can get on the head of the q-tip to the vent opening and any visible excrement. This seemed to produce a successful poop today.



As far as my setup goes:
1. There is dry food available 24/7, but we've been doing wet food 3-4 times per day to help with constipation, as the Dominiques had issues when they first arrived. Interestingly the baby in question did not have issues at all until recently, and the Dominiques are all doing great now. The food is MannaPro Medicated Chick Starter/Grower Crumbles. The only treats we give are boiled egg yolks, and yesterday, a dirt clod. The yolks are infrequent--no more than 1 yolk for all 11 chickens, and we haven't given them yolk for the last two days. We do not have chick grit in the brooder, but I assume the dirt clod may have provided some.

2. The brooder measures 5 square feet. This is small, but the bantams don't require as much room to the best of my knowledge. There are no pecking or bullying issues that we have observed.

3. The temperature for the last 3 days has been about 96 degrees Fahrenheit. I was keeping it at 105, but dropped it in hopes of helping this issue. The chickens have a hot zone and a cool zone, and happily move between them with no indication of temperature issues.

4. I have two quail/small bird waterers available for them. They frequently fling litter into the waterers, but we clean them regularly and there is always water available in at least 1.

5. The bedding is hemp, which I love--very little dust or odor, and it's super absorbent. No issues with them eating it as far as I can tell.


If you've made it through the wall of text, I have a couple of questions. Is there any way to force feed coconut oil? Is there anything else I can be doing for this chicken? 2 baths a day maybe? Are there any other anti-constipation remedies I can try.
?

You can mix a little feed in with Castor oil. Make sure she is getting enough water. Castor oil will clean her out.

 

[MenelausMontrose]

Well, I had hoped to return in a few days with a more positive update, but unfortunately the constipation has returned.

We kept using Dulcolax and feeding her egg yolk, along with providing molasses water. By Friday evening she seemed much better, so we discontinued the Dulcolax and egg yolks on Saturday, and just kept a water dispenser with molasses in the main brooder, along with a plain water dispenser. The food provided was a wet chick crumbles a several times a day, and 24/7 access to dry crumbles.


Sunday we noticed she and another of the Reds was starting to exhibit constipation issues again--hunched posture, pulsing vents, heavier breathing. The second Red was suprising--we've not had any issues with her, and she is larger than her sister.

Today we kept them isolated with only molasses/probiotic water, and Red #2 seemed to poop regularly. The first chick is very backed up though. I oiled her vent with olive oil thoroughly earlier in the day in hopes that would resolve things. Not sure how much she drank; we were not able to observe throughout the day.


This evening, I see she has a hard solid white poop--it looks like the end of a piece of chalk blocking her vent. It appears when she is straining to poop. I gently felt the plug while she was straining which is why I say it's hard.

I've soaked her butt in an epsom salt bath 4 hours ago for about 9 minutes. No results. I dosed her with more Dulcolax and bathed her again for 15 minutes an hour ago, but no results yet.

I read a thread where someone advised digging hard poops out with a rounded popsicle stick, but I hesitate to do anything like that given how delicate chick vents are supposed to be. I'm going to put her back in the main brooder overnight, as the lights will be out and I don't think she'll load up on dry food.

 

[azygous]

I'm sorry this has become a problem again, but no, don't go digging around in her butt. Chickens simply do not have room in that area to dig around without causing damage. I don't even like the idea of sticking a finger in there to check for egg binding.

Are these chickens drinking adequate water? That's one cause of constipation. Perhaps smaller food portions scattered over the curse of the day to avoid eating too much all at once. I don't know what else to suggest.

 

[MenelausMontrose]

Appreciate the advice and confirmation that I should not manually dig/remove the poop, @azygous. I think if I had responded faster on Sunday she wouldn't be as backed up today. She probably could have used another couple of days on egg yolk and laxatives, rather than going back to chick crumbles on Saturday.

The drinking or lack thereof could be a major contributing issue to chicken #1's issue. I don't have a great feel for how much a chick should be drinking, but I notice other chickens drinking more than I notice her doing so. Might be a little confirmation bias there since I'm paying the most attention after she is showing signs of distress and doesn't want to eat or drink.

Chicken #2 has gotten much less attention, so not sure about her drinking habits.

Maybe we'll set a timer and. trying dipping their beaks hourly. We had manually dipped #1 whenever we gave her a laxative, plus a couple other times per day, but perhaps we need to be more regular about it with her.

 

[BurbMum]

Hi, do you have a medicine dropper or syringe? You can use that to drip water (with or without molasses) alongside her beak until she drinks. I recently had to hand feed some sick babies (yolk, meds, probiotics) and this helped a lot.

I’ve read you can also do Epsom salt flush orally but I wouldn’t know dosing for a baby chick, anyone know?

Also do they have grit? Is it possible she’s eating the bedding?

 

[azygous]

I thought of one more thing to try. If you wet their feed or even better, ferment it, it has a huge head start on putting fluids into a chicken.

 

[MenelausMontrose]

The eyedropper does help; thank you @BurbMum. Grit has not been specifically provided outside of some dirt clods, as I had thought it was not necessary with chick crumbles and read they might overeat on the grit. They do not seem to be eating the bedding.

@azygous we are doing egg yolk and wet feed only for chicken #1. Fermented feed looks useful; might have to research and switch to that.

For chicken #1 though, the problem is this hardened poop that she still can't pass. It's the same poop as yesterday just stuck there. Sometimes she'll get some fluid around the plug, but the smell is getting worse and she's not as active.

We did do another 10 minute epsom soak around noon to try and loosen it, but no luck.

 

[MenelausMontrose]

Hey all,

Thanks again for all the help! I wanted to post one last update, for you and for those in similar situations reading this thread in the future.

Chicken #1 continued to have issues and was completely unable to pass the poop plug despite the laxatives she was getting. The next day or so after my last post, I actually put a pot of water on the stove, heated it to 100 degrees, and soaked her in an epsom salt bath for about 40 minutes while maintaining the temperature so it wouldn't chill her.

At this point, she was looking like she would die pretty soon if the blockage wasn't resolved, and 15+ minutes into the soak she wasn't passing it. With the understanding that if I did it wrong, I was going to accidentally kill my wife's favorite chicken, I went ahead and excavated some the poop blockage using the tip of a meat thermometer and a toothpick.

I would say this is definitely a last resort if you don't know chickens, which I don't. I was careful to only dig at the exposed center of the clog, and not go deep nor touch the walls of the vent at all.

Once the center was loosened, the clog then started to dissolve a little bit, and I was able to massage the vent and get some more pieces out.

We continued with a regimen of molasses water, Doculax twice per day, and wet chick feed. We dosed liberally with the Doculax -- several drops, especially if she seemed like she was flicking them out of her beak before swallowing.

Doculax continued for a couple of days, and we kept using molasses in the water for two weeks after that. We did not provide any other water source; everyone got molasses water.

We did not continue with the egg yolks.

I am pleased to report that after all that, chicken # 1 made a full recovery. She had problems with poops for several weeks -- usually they would stick to her butt and she would have to pick them off, or they would clump up. She is definitely smaller than her sisters. But at this point, she's very active and working on gaining the weight she missed out on earlier.

Chicken # 2 is also doing great, although again a little smaller due to those missed days of nutrients.

Here's a shot of #1 surrounded by her significantly larger flock mates. Thanks again everyone for your advice and assistance!