Chicken with Prolapsed Cloaca Needs Help Recovering

[citychickinthecountry]

I have a 33 week old Black Tail White Japanese Bantam hen that has been laying since 18 1/2 weeks of age. Earlier this week I took her to the vet with a severly prolapsed cloaca...her intestines and urinary tract were prolapsing. (This literally happened overnight! I think my other hens may have started pecking at her though when she started to pooch out.)

Her suture has been removed and she has dropped one egg without prolapsing again, but she's still sluggish and doesn't seem to want to eat or drink.

Is there anything I can do to help her in recovery? I'd be heartbroken if I lost my Angel.

I've been keeping her inside (away from my other hens) and have been offering her Gatorade at the advice of my vet. I have a call into the vet to see what he thinks, but he's been in emergency surgeries all day.

 

[citychickinthecountry]

To further clarify...Angel (the hen) does walk around (tenderly). She sometimes tries to clean her hind feathers and remove the poo (I help her as much as I can by using warm wet paper towels to remove what I can).

She isn't perky. She seems to want to sleep quite a bit (which to me is understandable, but I haven't had a sick chicken before). AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! I just want to cry.

 

[goldeneggtees]

I have no experience with what you describe but I did have a very injured hen who we nursed back to health inside after a gruesome injury. we hand fed her scrambled eggs, mixed with yogurt and wet layer pellets. Are you sure she's eating enough?

 

[citychickinthecountry]

Just spoke to the vet and he says that the only thing he's really concerned about is her not drinking. I'm going to start giving her water and Gatorade by syringe and I'm also going to buy a waterer that is the same as the one she's used to using in the coop and see if that helps.

 

[goldeneggtees]

Hi, how is your hen doing?

 

[citychickinthecountry]

Angel is doing much much better (thank you for checking on her).

We kept her in the house until Saturday morning (she was way too eager to go back outside and having her fly all around the house to follow us everywhere was getting to be a bit much). I wasn't too sure if she was going to make after the way she looked on Friday, but by Friday evening, she perked right up and was back to her old self. I guess once she got enough Gatorade/eletrolytes in her, she was ready to go.

We weren't sure if the other chickens would remember her (I'm not up on my chicken memory knowledge), but they greeted her (we have 3 other hens) and all started grazing and scratching around the yard like nothing had happened.

Of course, I kept a very close motherly eye on them to make sure no one pecked at Angel. Everyone behaved.

And I keep checking her butt...this chicken is going to get tired of me picking her up and checking out her butt!

She hasn't layed an egg in a few days...she is an every-other-day layer. I'm guessing she's taking a break to heal some more. She did lay an egg the day after the vet put in her suture (the same day he removed the suture), but I'm going to guess that she'll lay one today or tomorrow. Here's hoping for the best.