Can aspirin ease pain for my chicken?

[firehog]

My poor chicken is going on day 7 of being egg bound. I already spent $180 at the vet for 2 shots of Oxytocin and calcium but it did not work. She is getting bigger and harder and it must be painful but she still is walking and eating.

I bring her inside every night for special treat feeding thinking it will be her last night and I have been splitting a baby aspirin in half and putting it in some grapes hoping this will ease her pain. I have some Oxycodone tablets left over from when I had a tooth pulled and was thinking of giving her some of that. Any thoughts on this or is there a farm animal medication I cn give her for pain that I can get at a farm supply store?

When the time comes and she can no longer walk and I have to put her to sleep is there a pill I could give her so she dies very quickly without pain?

Thank you

 

[speckledhen]

That does not sound like egg binding at all to me. If it was, she'd already be dead. Egg binding means an egg is stuck in the oviduct--the abdomen would not be super enlarged like you describe. I'm betting she is laying internally. Unfortunately, there is no cure for that.

Chickens can have aspirin, yes. If it was a sprained leg or broken toe, I'd say a baby aspirin every other day for a week or so would be fine, but safety of meds is really a moot point if it's what I think it is. No idea about Oxycodone, which may kill her, but she's dying anyway, if she's laying internally.


There is no euthanasia pill for a chicken-if there was, we'd all have it, trust me.

 

[firehog]

I am just going on what the vet said after examining her. I was hoping he could massage squeeze the egg up and out the vent but he didn't consider that or maybe just wishful thinking on my part. I know people can die from an overdose of sleeping pils so you would think you could just give a chicken several sleeping pills at once and it would knock them out right away without pain.

She was a good layer for several years and is 4 years old

 

[speckledhen]

If the vet did not reach into her vent to try to get to an egg (you cannot "squeeze" it out or you'll break it inside), then he probably didn't really know what he was doing, but you didn't say what he did, exactly, to examine her.
If she's hatchery stock, she's already lived to a ripe old age. Most of mine were dead by that age from internal laying/egg yolk peritonitis. The ones who lived longer had ovarian carcinoma as well as some signs of internal laying.

 

[firehog]

There was no way the eggs could be reached from the vent. They were deep down between her legs. I could feel one which was hard so it had a shell and there felt like a couple more. I don't know if she was hatchery stock, I bought them as pullets from a person who had about 40 of them in his backyard. I thought chickens lived for at least 10 years if taken care of. My 6 older hens are either 5 or 6 years old and still lay but not daily

 

[speckledhen]

Then, they could have actually dropped into the abdomen and perforated the oviduct. There is NO way to get them out without surgery, in that case. I did lose a hen that way. It's not technically egg binding, I guess, though egg binding starts it. Poor hen had a huge egg with another egg inside of it. I have pictures of it since we opened her up after euthanizing her.


I do have older hens, but have lost all my original hatchery hens to internal laying or ovarian cancer except for one. She is 6 1/2 and hasn't laid in over a year. My breeder quality hens, however, with better genetics, don't have those issues, at least not so far.

 

[firehog]

I had seen for a while some eggs which appeared to have dried bloodspots on the shell. Perhaps those were hers and her egg duct was tearing and then just finally broke and the eggs are dropping inside her as you mentioned. Poor thing. If I were wealthy I would have the surgery but I read that surgery like this on weak birds usually kills them. , . My neighbor is into the praying with healing hands type thing and she wanted to save her that way but I am not into that and didn't want to stress her out anymore than she already is. Surprisingly today she was quite frisky even fighting for the bread treats I give them everyday. When you say "Hatchery" chickens, are you referring to the chicks you buy at Wilco this time of year?

 

[speckledhen]

We don't have Wilco in our area, but I guess that's a farm/feed store? All those get their chicks from hatcheries like Ideal, McMurray and Privett. They sell high volumes of chicks to those places and sell to individuals as well and, yes, that is what I'm talking about. They sell birds that look reasonably like the breed they are supposed to be, are mostly bred for egg production, etc.

Hens are the only animal on the planet who develop spontaneous ovarian tumors like human women so combine that with lack of attention by the hatcheries to longevity (why would they? It would cut into their business) and you get hens who start dying of reproductive malfunctions as soon as they pass the two to three year mark.

 

[chickmashnoon]

how sad. my chickens I started with are hatchery- will crossing some hatchery to make a hybrid help the next generation live longer at all? you know Hybrid vigor and all? I have some breeder babies on the way but that makes me nervous my current girls are going to start having problems.

 

[speckledhen]

The further from the hatchery generation, the better off you'll be, IMO.