Hi everyone,
I am not looking for help - but am making this post to help anyone that experienced the same problems I did with a hen.
One of my silkie hens went broody and was given eggs to hatch. She developed an impacted crop (because it finally rained here and the grass stared to grow), then sour crop, then vent gleet with a tiny prolapse. All these were treated successfully at home (so I thought) and things went back to normal.
About a month later - the babies had hatched and she is a very dedicated mom (still looks after them even though they are nearly as big as her lol) but her droppings went very strange and she seemed to be really struggling to pass them - a lot of bum wiggling and straining was going on. It was also clear that it was hurting because her eyes closed and she was grunting. Her droppings became all liquid with bright green undigested material in them - it looked the same as it did going in as coming out - there were also no white urates. She had also pretty much completely lost interest in all food except corn and cucumber.
After many different vets and a lot of waisted time I found a fantastic one that knew what they were doing. She had cloacitis/cloacoliths. Basically from what I understand urates had formed crystals in her vent and adhered to the lining of her cloaca causing all sorts of digestive irritation. Imguessing this started the same time as the vent gleet and kept getting worse. She was admitted to the vets for a hospital stay and I was sure I would loose her - she was loosing 10-20 grams per day and was very thin by this point. Their treatments included scraping out the urates carefully (did bleed according to their notes) over three days, lavaging, putting her on anti inflammatories, antibiotics, crop feeding (then medication to get the crop moving because it was static), crop bra, crop flushes, fluids and coccidiostats as they found a few oocysts in the droppings (normal amount but treated anyway).
When I brought her home her droppings were still bright green but in the shape of poop. She still had crop stasis so I was massaging her every hour to get things moving. She was still huddled and fluffy and kept warm with a lamp there if she wanted to use it (she did). She was in an incredible amount of pain when pooping (she’s a quiet bird, but was straining and yelling when she pooped). She was still on antibiotics and anti inflammatories and the vet was confident this would pass in a day or so. She finally started passing loose normal looking brown poop after a couple of days at home and the straining when pooping was easing.
Back to the vet for a checkup and they found yeast in the droppings from the antibiotics - so she is now on anti fungals as well. But much better and is gaining weight again.
She is still in recovery and I won’t consider her cured until she has started laying again but back to her old self. Eating vigorously, foraging, talking, playing, begging - it’s so good to see. This was a very expensive journey though and without treatment she would of kept loosing weight and eventually passed away from organ failure despite every home treatment I could have possibly given her.
I hope my story helps someone and their beloved chicken.
I am not looking for help - but am making this post to help anyone that experienced the same problems I did with a hen.
One of my silkie hens went broody and was given eggs to hatch. She developed an impacted crop (because it finally rained here and the grass stared to grow), then sour crop, then vent gleet with a tiny prolapse. All these were treated successfully at home (so I thought) and things went back to normal.
About a month later - the babies had hatched and she is a very dedicated mom (still looks after them even though they are nearly as big as her lol) but her droppings went very strange and she seemed to be really struggling to pass them - a lot of bum wiggling and straining was going on. It was also clear that it was hurting because her eyes closed and she was grunting. Her droppings became all liquid with bright green undigested material in them - it looked the same as it did going in as coming out - there were also no white urates. She had also pretty much completely lost interest in all food except corn and cucumber.
After many different vets and a lot of waisted time I found a fantastic one that knew what they were doing. She had cloacitis/cloacoliths. Basically from what I understand urates had formed crystals in her vent and adhered to the lining of her cloaca causing all sorts of digestive irritation. Imguessing this started the same time as the vent gleet and kept getting worse. She was admitted to the vets for a hospital stay and I was sure I would loose her - she was loosing 10-20 grams per day and was very thin by this point. Their treatments included scraping out the urates carefully (did bleed according to their notes) over three days, lavaging, putting her on anti inflammatories, antibiotics, crop feeding (then medication to get the crop moving because it was static), crop bra, crop flushes, fluids and coccidiostats as they found a few oocysts in the droppings (normal amount but treated anyway).
When I brought her home her droppings were still bright green but in the shape of poop. She still had crop stasis so I was massaging her every hour to get things moving. She was still huddled and fluffy and kept warm with a lamp there if she wanted to use it (she did). She was in an incredible amount of pain when pooping (she’s a quiet bird, but was straining and yelling when she pooped). She was still on antibiotics and anti inflammatories and the vet was confident this would pass in a day or so. She finally started passing loose normal looking brown poop after a couple of days at home and the straining when pooping was easing.
Back to the vet for a checkup and they found yeast in the droppings from the antibiotics - so she is now on anti fungals as well. But much better and is gaining weight again.
She is still in recovery and I won’t consider her cured until she has started laying again but back to her old self. Eating vigorously, foraging, talking, playing, begging - it’s so good to see. This was a very expensive journey though and without treatment she would of kept loosing weight and eventually passed away from organ failure despite every home treatment I could have possibly given her.
I hope my story helps someone and their beloved chicken.
