Egg bound calcium dosage

[casportpony]

Thanks, Kathy. Yeah, I won't inject any that isn't fresh. I squirted it into her mouth followed by water. She is drinking so that's a good thing and she's in Zane's old cage so she won't be bothered. I've never tried this, only that emergency Tums thing, but this has to be much more effective.

Just yesterday I had to do this with one of my 30 pound turkeys that was in distress. Saw her standing in the shade, wings dropped, panting tail pumping, so I gave a quick check inside her vent and sure enough there was an egg. So I went in the house and prepared 6ml calcium and 120 ml water, then tubed her. checked on her an hour later and she had laid the egg. This is a hen I have to do this with every year... sigh.If she hadn't passed it, I was going to put her in the bathroom and fill it with steam.

-Kathy

 

[speckledhen]

@casportpony , I can't imagine having to wrestle a bird that size. 15 lb Suede was enough when I had to pick him up for something. This hen isn't walking with tail down nor is she standing like a penguin. And it may not even be an egg, but it is a mass far back we cannot reach. This is a shotgun treatment just to see if it helps. But, she is a very regular layer, one of my best, and she hasn't laid an egg in a few weeks now, so I am fairly sure that's what is wrong due to their size. If this is larger, heaven help her. I lost a Delaware hen once who laid gigantic eggs. She had a rock hard abdomen and started losing weight. We put her down and she had an even larger than her normal egg that had another egg inside it, the "package" of which had dropped into the abdomen. No way she was coming out of that alive.

 

[Lori S]

This thread has been very helpful with my first egg-bound hen on Sunday night. She was droopy and listless, tail down, hardly moved at all. Inserting a vaselined finger, I felt an egg not just inside but on the other side of a membrane??. I "lubed" her vent that night. The next morning she seemed the same. I gave her a warm soak, and tried to get her to eat crushed calcium tablets and then tums. I never saw her eat much (should I have forced it in like I do for my cats?) of those the first day so I left them available in the coop. I did see take some water, to which I had added electrolytes. She was at least getting in and out of the coop. The second day I say her eating some, maybe a bit better or maybe I imagined that. This afternoon I gave her oral calcium gluconate, 1.5 ml. for an approximately 5 pound hen. She soon headed for the nest box, but no egg yet, an hour after dosing. I paused this post to check on her and found her sitting on an egg (hopefully hers!). However she does, I will keep the calcium gluconate in case of another bout. I am interested in the posts on giving it on an ongoing basis. With oyster and eggshell supplements, is that likely to be needed? Wish me luck in the days ahead.

 

[casportpony]

I only give it when I see a hen in distress...

-Kathy

 

[speckledhen]

@casportpony , my hen has had the calcium two days in a row, going to give it today as well, but yesterday when I checked her abdomen, it may be my imagination but her abdomen was not as hard as pre-treatment, seems more pliable. There is no egg yet, but boy, she suddenly is blowing all her feathers and her poop is nothing but water (the latter may be due to her very low food intake), just lakes and lakes of it. No idea what is actually going on, but she already molted this year and it appears she is going into a second one.

Would you continue the calcium another day or two or stop it? What do you think? This is where you are more expert than I. I usually deal with internal laying crud and EYP but the actual egg stuck way up the chute is a different thing for me, other than the one hen who died from the egg-within-an-egg that couldn't pass.

 

[casportpony]

@casportpony , my hen has had the calcium two days in a row, going to give it today as well, but yesterday when I checked her abdomen, it may be my imagination but her abdomen was not as hard as pre-treatment, seems more pliable. There is no egg yet, but boy, she suddenly is blowing all her feathers and her poop is nothing but water (the latter may be due to her very low food intake), just lakes and lakes of it. No idea what is actually going on, but she already molted this year and it appears she is going into a second one.

Would you continue the calcium another day or two or stop it? What do you think? This is where you are more expert than I. I usually deal with internal laying crud and EYP but the actual egg stuck way up the chute is a different thing for me, other than the one hen who died from the egg-within-an-egg that couldn't pass.

If I can't feel an egg I don't give it. Are you open to tube feeding? Tube feeding can also be used as a diagnostic tool, and by that I mean that once properly hydrated with a tube, one can tube food, and within a few hours she should start pooping. All liquid poop could have so many causes.

Here is a picture from a mature hen that had a bad case of coccidiosis and capillary worms!


Can you post a picture of her poop?

-Kathy

 

[speckledhen]

I did worm them recently with Safeguard. If I can see any poop, I can photograph it. She's in a cage with wood bottom and shavings so may be hard to see anything. Its just mostly water. Could be nothing more than she was going into a hard molt and her egg laying system malfunctioned-I've seen that quite a few times, just not usually on a hen this young. I think she's about two years old, maybe a tad older. Her eggs have always been gigantic, very long and rough, usually something that doesn't bode well for any smaller bodied hen, in my experience.

I forgot to answer your question about tube feeding. I really would rather not do that.

 

[casportpony]

There is some good info on egg binding here:
http://avianmedicine.net/content/uploads/2013/03/15.pdf

Just do a "ctrl f" and search for egg binding.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

I did worm them recently with Safeguard. If I can see any poop, I can photograph it. She's in a cage with wood bottom and shavings so may be hard to see anything. Its just mostly water. Could be nothing more than she was going into a hard molt and her egg laying system malfunctioned-I've seen that quite a few times, just not usually on a hen this young. I think she's about two years old, maybe a tad older. Her eggs have always been gigantic, very long and rough, usually something that doesn't bode well for any smaller bodied hen, in my experience.

I forgot to answer your question about tube feeding. I really would rather not do that.

So when you wormed with Safeguard, did you do it for five days or just one day? I ask because many people think that with a one day dose repeated in ten days that they have treated all worms, but capillary worms require a more aggressive treatment, and the amount recommended to me by a vet is 0.23 ml per pound for five consecutive days.

Here are some pictures from the Veterinary Parasitoglogy Manual:




Ignore the ivermectin comment, studies show that ivermectin is no longer an effective poultry wormer.

-Kathy

 

[speckledhen]

@casportpony Yes, I know about the 5 day treatment, but this time, I did them once and just did it again in less than two weeks. I don't know that they have capillary worms or any worms, necessarily, though this group has been penned more than free ranging this spring and those need more worming than free rangers, generally.

Serena's abdomen is completely pliable again. Her crop isn't working well, seems to me. It's slightly doughy. Again, molting exacerbates so many underlying issues and the crop is a barometer of whatever might be wrong in there. We did another dose of the calcium gluconate and massaged her crop to push things along. Could be this molt is taking a lot out of her for some reason. It's been a super wet winter and maybe they do have a higher worm load than usual this year. I have plans to buy Valbazen but I can't afford it this month, unfortunately. And getting DH to help with doing things like worming and toenail trims is not always simple. It's all on me. This is why I will not keep the numbers I used to keep anymore and am working on thinning the ranks through attrition (though I'd rather the old ones pass on, not my prime layers, sheesh).

Here are the poop pics you asked about, Kathy. That white stuff underneath the shavings is DE I sprinkled to help dry up the floor of the cage.




That wet on the left is her poop, not water.





ETA:

I am doing the rest of the 5 day worming with Safeguard, if I have enough left to do so. They've had 2 days of it in a row this go=round. Serena is not doing well. She stands with eyes closed, has lost more weight. I fear her issue may be liver failure or something like that which is invisible to me and completely beyond my control. If not, it's something reproductive that heavy calcium doses isn't fixing. I hate to lose another younger hen but that is the theme of the past year or so for us, all from different stuff.