Egg Bound, Prolapse - what more can i do??HELP

[Auscal]

Over the past few days I have noticed my one year old Delaware straining, acting very quiet & staying by herself. I thought she was probably eggbound (she has never been a good layer,ie usually soft eggs dropped all over yard etc I don't know when she last laid, but I suspect it is probably well over a week). She has a big lump drooping between her legs,to within and inch or two of the ground (about the size of an orange). I have given her a warm bath (30 minutes) the past two days with no results. While massaging I "thought" I could feel an egg. I have slso syringed some olive oil into her vent. She is still straining, and is now dripping blood from her vent. She also strained about 1" of her "insides" out (prolapse?), which I pushed back in. I have her separated from the other chickens since they were overly interested in her rear end.

She is obviously not a well chicken, and, after even reading a lot of back posts here I am out of ideas

At this point, what else can I do? (a vets visit is an option I'd rather not consider).

TIA for any comments - I am out of ideas here.

 

[bj taylor]

i hope you get an answer. what a difficult thing. sorry i have no answer for you. i hope someone does.

 

[Auscal]

anyone?

 

[PeachesLaRue]

I don't know what to say ... I am dealing with a Turken who has a prolapsed oviduct too. I have not called the avian vet yet ... I first spotted a fairly large mass protruding from her vent two days ago along with the sub-vent feathers covered with a lot of white gooey mess (it's not worms by the by - it's the white goo that's part of chicken poo). Needless to say, I was alarmed. She never acted any differently ... was alert and walked around like nothing in the world was wrong. She is already a bird separated from the rest of the flock months ago because they had been picking on her, but at least they had not been able to add to this problem. She has her own quarters, roaming rights separate from the rest of the flock and seems to be very happy. First thing I did was find an old clean towel and put that in the bottom of her cage, I was afraid that the hay would irritate the mass. I had noticed lately she was laying some pretty large eggs. She is one year old, she is not fat and has been a steady egg layer with no problems. I immediately went online and read about 100 posts about this. So, I followed some of the ideas ... so far ... the very first day I had nothing on hand, but filtered liquid honey, so I put on surgical gloves and gave her a nice warm bath for about 20 minutes and made sure she was all cleaned up back there and then swabbed the liquid honey on it since honey has anti-microbial properties. I then went to the store and bought some Preparation H and some Neosporin. I gave her a second bath and cleaned off all the honey and then swabbed Preparation H over the mass and very carefully pushed the prolapse back in, that's when I felt an egg inside her. So ... I wasn't sure if the egg that was laid earlier that day was the problem ... or was this egg the problem ... being egg bound would just add more bad drama to this. I mixed just a bit of the Neosporin with the Preparation H and swabbed the vent area with that and just inside the vent. I dissolved a regular calcium pill with vitamin D3 / magnesium and phosphorus in it and gave her a few eyedroppers of that, hoping that the minerals would help her with the egg situation. Then I put her back in her cage with a different clean towel and covered the cage so that it was very dark and quiet and warm. I let her sleep overnight and saw in the morning that she had pooped (a great sign) and though the protrusion had popped out again, it was half the size as before and not nearly as swollen. She was standing there looking at me as if I had the nerve to keep her in the dark! I then gave her a nice warm bath again a few minutes later .... and kept her submerged in that again for about 20 minutes ... she didn't struggle and almost fell asleep in my hands as she was sitting in there. I did the same routine as before with the Prep H and the Neosporin and the calcium water. I put her back in the cage and peeked in and she had gone to sit in the back and then I checked an hour later and she had successfully laid the egg - big sigh of relief there. I saw the vent area was not as bad, but still a bit of a mess, so I gave her another bath anyway and repeated the procedure. This time when I cleaned her up I noticed that there was some hardened white material (looked like hardened white poo) on just a small part of the mass. I was able to carefully soak most of it off, but there was still just a little there. I made sure I liberally swabbed the Preparation H and the Neosporin over that because I don't want her getting any secondary infection. She is eating ... and drinking ... I have changed her water 3 times a day ... first water of the day is 'Save-A-Chik' electrolytes, 2nd water of the day I dissolved a small calcium tablet in the water, and 3rd water of the day is water with a tsp of apple cider vinegar in it. I had cut her food back to just a little bit, and she is eating that and drinking. She has been pooing, and not as much because the food intake has been cut back. She doesn't act like she is uncomfortable and she is perky ... but that prolapse still concerns me although she has pulled it back in a couple of times so that it is not even visible ... I'll just keep repeating the steps every day, keeping her clean as I can and keeping her in quiet dark quarters. I guess I can only wait it out now ... my only concern is a secondary infection and I do wonder if I should contact the vet to get her some antibiotics. Since she laid that egg, I washed the egg and put it back in her cage and will let her sit on it if she shows interest in it, and hope she goes 'broody' because hopefully at least she won't be adding more egg strain to the situation ... no more eggs would be great because then maybe her poor innards could heal. She is our favorite bird, so that's why we are going through all the fuss ... I really don't even care if she ever lays another egg again ... I just would like her to get better. I just don't know if a vet can help me any more at this point ... except maybe with the anti-biotics. I don't know if any of that helps you ... and I am no doctor ... so I can't tell you if what I am doing is a good thing or not. All I can say is so far ... so good. Just crossing my fingers. It is icky ... but if you are gentle and use surgical gloves to take care of your bird, she'll appreciate it ... or if she is really in a bad state then I wouldn't hesitate to call the avian vet!!!

 

[PeachesLaRue]

And you -definitely- need to absolutely keep her separated from the others ... chickens are after all things red ... and they will peck her until the innards are pulled out and she dies ... it's just what they do!!! Be prepared to have her separated from them for at least a month if the need be ... my bird will be indefinitely separated from the rest of the flock.

 

[Auscal]

Peaches, thankyou for your lenghty response.

My chicken seemed about the same early this morning - but when I checked her about 2 hours later she had what appeared to about a foot of intestines protruding from her butt. I decided at that point that the best thing to do was put her down.

This is the first time I have had to do this to a chicken - we made sure quick & painless for her. I'm still not 100% sure that the problem was egg-bound, but, she had to be suffering, and I saw no other option. It's sad to go out now and only see 4 chickens, not 5.

 

[PeachesLaRue]

Oh my. With that much hanging out, that was definitely too large of a problem. I do believe that you made the correct choice because above and beyond all things, we all want our birds not to suffer! I'm truly sorry you had to put her down. I hope the rest of your chickens will be fine. From what I've read, prolapse is something that does happen, but is not a rampant regular problem. My bird didn't have nearly that much of a prolapse ... it was definitely large enough to give me a start though. Progress on my Turken: Since my last post, and keeping up with the regimen I had started, the prolapse has now disappeared along with all swollenness. Everything is staying back in where it should. She has laid more eggs since then, is eating and drinking, is completely perky, sassy and acting completely normal. So, I am just going to watch her closely for another week, but since her hind end is now perfectly clean as well as her feathers, and her poops are back to normal ... I think the danger is over at this point. I did not give her the baths or the PrepH today, I just put a small amount of the Neosporin around her vent, and gave her a couple of eyedroppers of the calcium pill combo dissolved in water. She is still not allowed around any of the other birds, although her best friend, a white silkie seems so much happier now that she sees Turken acting normal. The white silkie was acting just as upset as I was over the situation! One note: I stayed away from using any kind of 'oils' (like olive oil or mineral oil) to deal with this ... I personally think that oils can become rancid and become an infectious medium in themselves, so I stuck to using the Prep H, the Neosporin, the added electrolytes and calcium and watching the diet very closely ... plus, the initial cleaning and initial coating of liquid honey that I used while out gathering the other items seemed like that may have helped. So far so good, I happened to catch the situation just right after it happened, so that may have been the key to success here. Now I take a good look over each and every bird when I am near the coops, just seems like generally a good idea. Like I said, I do not claim to be any kind of doctor, and had the situation been different, I may very well have called the avian vet. What I did was gleaned out of reading many posts and then deciding what would work best in the case of my own Turken's situation.

 

[cboriskin]

About two months ago, I had a hen with a prolasped oviduct with an egg hanging out. We ended up separating her from the flock and putting her in a dark place so she would stop laying. We then took a scalpal and cut the egg out. We sprayed Vetericyn (an antibiotic spray that I use on my horse), washed her rear daily with mild soap and water and put Preparation H all around the vent. We did this for at least 2 weeks. It was pretty messy since poop was stuck to her rear end. We also cut her feathers short so it wouldn't be so messy. We were going to put her down because she wasn't eating and barely drinking, but we didn't. After we were able to remove the hardened glob of a mess (not sure if it was poop or dead tissue or both), there was about an inch of the vent still out. So, we stuck it back in and it stayed. Today, she is doing well and laying daily!