Chicken with possible salpingitis and sour crop

Henfla

Songster
Apr 29, 2022
179
542
151
Tromsø, Norway
I have a 2,5 year old hen. She have been having trouble laying soft shelled eggs for a very long time (maybe 6 months to a year). I have been giving her extra calcium, but it hasn't helped. I haven't seen her lay an egg in over a month at least. She has been acting normal until this weekend, when I felt something was off. So I felt her abdomen, and I think it was hard and a bit swollen. I had some sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim that I started her on saturday evening, and I went to the vet with her monday. The vet here knows very little about poultry. The vet prescribed baytril, but no pharmacy had it, so I couldn't start with that until today unfortunately. So she has gotten the sulfamethoxazole/ trimethoprim until yesterday.
Monday when I went to the vet I also thought her breath smelled like garlic, and I figured out it had to be sour crop when I came home (but the vet didn't know what it could be when I said she smells like garlic, so didn't start any treatment for that then). On monday she was still eating and her crop felt normal, so she had mealworms with plain yoghurt. Yesterday she drank alot of water in the morning when she was outside with the others, and I took her in from the afternoon because she seemed lethargic. Her crop was very squishy, so I gave her oil and what we call "sour milk" for the bacteria and yeast overgrowth in her crop, and massaged it alot the whole evening. She has been really unwell since yesterday evening.
She hasn't had any foods since yesterday, and she also has stopped drinking and today she is just lying down with her eyes closed all the time. I think her breathing is more heavy than normal.
She's laying beside me on the sofa because she doesn't want to be in the cage alone.
I give her water with ACV in a syringe, and oil and sour milk. Her breath smells normal today, but her crop still has a lot of solid content in it, from monday probably. I think she can't empty her crop properly atm because of the infection she has, and I'm hoping that the antibiotics I gave her today will help her.
Her poop has been white liquid with small bits of green in it since yesterday, and this morning it was very watery.

I am thinking that it seems like the sour milk and ACV is helping for the sour crop, and that I will call the vet and get her some medication for yeast infection if she is still alive tomorrow, but maybe the main focus should be the reproductive infection I think she has. I don't live in america so I don't have miconazole aviailable.

My question is if I should do anything differently?
I still also think her comb and wattles seems pretty normal in colour, and I want to give the antibiotics a shot before considering euthanasia.
 

Attachments

  • 20240925_120602.jpg
    20240925_120602.jpg
    266.8 KB · Views: 46
Update: She suddently wanted to get up to poop, and then her heart stopped and she died in my arms. :hit Don't feel like she suffered much, so I think it was peaceful for her.
I have done everything I could for her.
I know I should do an autopsy, but I don't know if I am able to
 
I am so sorry for your loss. I had just begun reading your thread. It may be for the best so she doesn’t suffer, but it is shocking when it happens so suddenly. The heavy breathing may have been from ascites fluid in her abdomen or the pressure inside if she had salpingitis or a tumor. When I lose a hen, I do a brief necropsy, opening the abdominal cavity to look for yellow fluid, the color of the organs and look for any small nodules or tumors. If the liver is tan instead of red, spotted, or covered with thick fat and a blot clot, that is abnormal. Spots on the liver or nodule on the intestines is also telling of illness. Take pictures if you do a necropsy to post here. Here is a good video for identification of the organs:

 
I am so sorry for your loss. I had just begun reading your thread. It may be for the best so she doesn’t suffer, but it is shocking when it happens so suddenly. The heavy breathing may have been from ascites fluid in her abdomen or the pressure inside if she had salpingitis or a tumor. When I lose a hen, I do a brief necropsy, opening the abdominal cavity to look for yellow fluid, the color of the organs and look for any small nodules or tumors. If the liver is tan instead of red, spotted, or covered with thick fat and a blot clot, that is abnormal. Spots on the liver or nodule on the intestines is also telling of illness. Take pictures if you do a necropsy to post here. Here is a good video for identification of the organs:

Thank you.
I did a very brief necropsy yesterday after I calmed down a bit, and found LOTS of ascites. Also all the organs had white spots all over them. What do you think the white spots was?
Unfortunately, I did not take a picture, and she is buried now.
 
Were the white spots tiny or were they larger? There is something called spotty liver disease caused by campylobacter, a common bacteria found in chickens. There are a couple kinds, and c. hepato is the kind that causes this disease. If the spots were larger, that could be something else, but may be related to a type of cancer, such as Mareks or leukosis, or others. The following pictures show white or gray spots of various liver diseases.
Here is a picture of spotty liver from campylobacter:
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/...033f_385b925c2b8d4fa18a2e53c7e0693987~mv2.jpg

This picture is of Mareks disease:
https://partnersah.vet.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/avian_atlas_assets/MD-276A x750.jpg

This shows intestinal tumors in Mareks disease:
https://partnersah.vet.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/avian_atlas_assets/MD-103A x750.jpg

This picture of avian leukosis virus shows large white spots on the liver:
https://edge.sitecorecloud.io/mmanu...ules-chicken-nair-sized.jpeg?thn=0&sc_lang=en
 
Last edited:
Were the white spots tiny or were they larger? There is something called spotty liver disease caused by campylobacter, a common bacteria found in chickens. There are a couple kinds, and c. hepato is the kind that causes this disease. If the spots were larger, that could be something else, but may be related to a type of cancer, such as Mareks or leukosis, or others. The following pictures show white or gray spots of various liver diseases.
Here is a picture of spotty liver from campylobacter:
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/...033f_385b925c2b8d4fa18a2e53c7e0693987~mv2.jpg

This picture is of Mareks disease:
https://partnersah.vet.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/avian_atlas_assets/MD-276A x750.jpg

This shows intestinal tumors in Mareks disease:
https://partnersah.vet.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/avian_atlas_assets/MD-103A x750.jpg

This picture of avian leukosis virus shows large white spots on the liver:
https://edge.sitecorecloud.io/mmanu...ules-chicken-nair-sized.jpeg?thn=0&sc_lang=en
Thank you for the pictures. The spots was not like any of these. They were big and white, but not like the last picture because it wasn't bumps. And they were all over and not only on the liver.

Maybe she had a type of cancer because of the spots and the ascites, and because she did not respond to antibiotics. I did expect to find lash eggs inside because I suspected salpingitis, but there were no signs of that at all. I don't think she had salpingitis anymore.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom