Egg Yolk Peritonitis Prevention or Management

[Spinster_Sister]

this is what I gave my Parsley when she needed to eat more. I poached chicken breast with sliced garlic, rosemary and ginger. shredded it up with pulverized egg shell and metacam.......put it in her treat cup. i conditioned her to look for her treat cup and then she gobbled up anything in there. mealworms, buttermilk with added probiotics, greek yogurt mixed with her mash..etc...

try poaching some chicken or cube steak....at least the broth

 

[Mitfordsmom]

Hi Emily,

that's great news about Casino!

Smallflock, that feeding guide is really useful as most guides are aimed at getting maximum egg production but if you care more about your hen's health it's perfect, I hope I can source the food in the UK.

Well, I got back from holidays last night and it was too dark to see my girls although the pet sitter had reported one was looking unwell. When I checked them first thing this morning I discovered another of my girls, Debbo - is showing the exact same symptoms as Diana my hen that died from EYP just before I went on holidays. Her tummy isn't as swollen but she has lost a lot of weight and her comb is practically gone and her bottom was messy. I've given her a warm bath, a tums tablet and also some Baytril. She's now sleeping in the kitchen beside me. I'm going to give her one day of rest before deciding about taking her to the vet as I can't help feeling that's what finished Diana off. My four girls are/were all ex-battery and sadly they seem very prone to this condition. I've kind of resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to lose Debbo too - but who knows. I wish I didn't love these chickens so much

 

[smallflock3]

We tried to find a commercial feed that didn't have really high calcium, protein, and fat. I ended up getting the Dumour Grower/Finisher from Tractor Supply, not that it's the best feed but the only one I could find that wouldn't overload them. I couldn't afford to give all my birds the Roudybush Food that the Rescue Center talked about, it would be nice though to be able to buy some Organic feed or make it. I give them oat groat and hard red winter wheat berry for treats and I think I'm going to add flax seed after reading some of these posts. I do supplement them with yogurt and oats, Oyster Shell, and Calcium in their water. They need calcium but not a feed that's going to push it in them everyday in high contents. They're not always laying. I've been giving them Nutrical for Cats (a nutritional supplement found at Petco) when they are broody or molting and it's the one thing that they will eat. I put it on oats that I have sprinkled on yogurt and they devour it. The rescue center turned me on to it but under a different brand name but I did a comparison and the Nutrical for Cats is identical. I'm still looking for the ultimate feed for the birds.

 

[Mitfordsmom]

Thanks for that!

Debbo had bright yellow watery poop - has anyone come across this? Is this a symptom of EYP? I got Baytril into her twice today and she seemed a tiny bit perkier this evening and there was actually some normal poop in the yellow poop. She settled in the coop tonight with her sisters and I'm hoping for an improvement in the morning.

 

[smallflock3]

I had one of the Vets that checked my hen that had a hysterectomy, tell me anytime you see yellow in the hens' urine/poop it's either their liver or egg. This hen ended up having masses equivalent to 20 rotten eggs in her. She survived the removal of the egg debry and oviduct but ended up passing on from constriction of her trachea. When they use an endotracheal tube during surgery, sometimes especially in birds, they will end up having their tracheas constrict after the removal of the tube. Anyway this hen and a couple of others I had also passed yellow off and on in their urine/poop and I still have one of them left alive, my ISA Brown that has the tumor. All of these are hatchery birds, red sex link. I hope your hen pulls through.

 

[emilysteng]

Hello all

I'm sorry to hear about the troubles you are still having.

I appreciate the information about the feed. I was wondering what to feed her from now on. I always thought the egg layer was needed because she was laying eggs - I didn't know it would actually stimulate her to lay more eggs. This time I happened to buy flock raiser because they didn't have layer feed. I will look into other options also.

Casino - when I had her cooped up - had alot of watery poop. Kind of like the one in the poop chart that says they do it when they aren't eating enough or when it's really hot. I haven't been able to see her poop lately. When she was at the vet last week she had a poop and the second vet who was there noticed a drop of blood in it.

She's still been acting pretty much the same this past week. Pretty perky, wants to eat quite a bit the first time I see her in the day. Wants to catch geckos. When I see her later in the day only wants to eat treats like grapes and cracked corn/scratch. Hanging around her boyfriend and his other two hens pretty much. Scratches around some. I hope she really is better.

Mitfordsmom - welcome back from your trip. I'm so sorry to hear Debbo is not well. I hope she gets better soon.

 

[Mitfordsmom]

Thanks Emily! She's a little better but I'm not raising my hopes yet!

That's a good point about the food, if the hens are bread for laying would it cause soft shell, egg binding etc. if they don't get a layers mix - does anyone have the answer?

 

[speckledhen]

Unfortunately, feed will not have an effect on internal laying, not in any appreciable way. Other than one study regarding the benefit of flax seed in possibly staving off internal laying in some cases, there is no evidence that any food, supplement, vitamin or mineral will stop it from happening. Internal laying is a genetic/hormone based malfunction. Mine had the best food, the best surroundings, the best of everything in every way *including flax seed*, but the ones who suffered from this were all my common hatchery stock (all except for one, and her mother was a hatchery hen). The breeder stock seems to be made of stronger genetic stuff.

Of course, the hens who have the best immune systems and are in the best all round health when this happens may be able to live longer, like my Ivy and my Olivia did, but eventually, they will succumb to it. I hate being the bearer of bad tidings; it's just that I have done so much research on the subject, consulted with very knowledgeable and educated folks about it after having it happen with one after the other, and it always comes down to the same conclusion. When they have fluid buildup in the abdomen as Olivia did, you can at least feel you're doing something when you drain it, but not all of them have any palpable foreign body or fluid in the abdomen you can even deal with.

Just keep loving them and caring for them. These hens are fortunate that they have owners who are so concerned with their welfare.

 

[emilysteng]

Thanks speckledhen. Your opinion and information are always helpful. I guess I was thinking if there was a any way of getting them to lay less, that would help because the probability of internal laying would be less just from laying less.

Yesterday when I came to feed Casino she had lost several of her tail feathers and today they are pretty much all gone, though I can see a new one coming out. I know feather loss/molt can be caused by a huge array of things, but it's just worrisome and she looks so sad without her nice tail. Several weeks ago when she was at her worst she started losing lots of feathers also and the second vet (who I didn't really care for) thought that was a sign of an ovarian tumor. The original vet, who I like better, said it could really be caused by so many things - of course a tumor was a possibility - but just so hard to say. Then she seemed to stop losing feathers a few days later when she started eating and improving.

So now I guess it's started again - though I only notice the tail feathers gone and not a huge loss of other feathers. She is still eating/drinking quite nicely and I saw a poop yesterday that looked quite normal.

 

[smallflock3]

Emilysteng,
How many injections of Lupron has Casino had so far? I wonder how they judge if they are a candidate for this? Or maybe a trial like my hen with the Prednisone? She had a spell recently that made me think she was laying internally and she is passing the watery poo in the morning. I bought her 500 crickets online and they came to our house really fast, so now she has plenty of bugs to eat. She has been overall better except for this spell but I am crop feeding her to keep her energy up. She is still suppose to keep taking the Prednisone twice a week.

My Polish has stopped panting but acting weird and not eating alot but then she gets weird sometimes. Other that that she's scratching and off her meds now.

I am always trying to grab onto something that will help the hens. The feeding advice came from trials they did with the chickens coming into the rescue center. The rescue center is far away from me in another state but they were great at responding to my questions when I was I need. (I don't know of a chicken rescue in my state but there possibly could be one.) They told me they had lost so many due to egg related deaths and their Vet had done research on nutrition and they started having luck with the feeds with the lower percentages of protein, fat, and calcium. I too was afraid to switch because thinking that it may cause the eggs to be misformed or no shelled, or even effect their bones, and then I couldn't understand why you would add calcium to their water, and feed calcium and oystershell free of choice, but I have been giving it a try. I figured after 3 hens had died and all ate Layena, what would it hurt. But it is like Speckled Hen said it's all in the genetic make up and some survive and some don't. I had a few other vets tell me I wasn't hurting them by changing their feed though. The rescue center vet also gives lupron injectons (first I had ever heard of them) and implants the patches. The Vet that performed the hysterectomy on my hen that passed was going to eventually start her on a patch too, but we didn't get that far. Again, I don't know if I could have afforded it either and if it would have worked.

Hope everyones hens are hanging in there!