green poop, penguin posture and straddled walk

[tony vaughan]

hello everyone. i'm new here, but kept hens for quite a few years, rescued battery hens as well as rearing from chicks. i've encountered many problems, but the one that baffles me the most is the penguin posture. i currently have a hen that stopped laying, but had got this posture, with green poop, but overall in fine form, she's eating well, and wants to hunt for food. she has lost weight though. she's been to the vet 3 times. i've given her a tmp based antibiotic, diluted in water and honey, a break for a week, then baytril. shes also been wormed and treated for mites. she's bald around the vent. she's just been x-rayed, no internal laying, but swollen around the abdomen. the vet is looking at her now. these are symptoms i've seen often on this site, which have been attributed to multiple causes. had a similar case over a year ago, and an x-ray showed an an egg shaped structure, but not a fully formed egg. would be hgood to hear from anyone with similar experiences.

good luck to you all, and hope your feathery ladies are enjoying life

 

[Pork Pie]

Hi Tony and welcome to BYC. Sorry to hear about your woes.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Hi, welcome to BYC!

Sorry your girl is having trouble. Sounds like egg binding to me except that is deadly usually within 48 hours.

With the vet and x-rays on your side, I probably won't be much help. But thank you so much for sharing so we can learn from your experience even if we don't have the answers!

 

[rjohns39]

Hi Tony and welcome to BYC So sorry to hear about your hen, and hoping all goes well We're really happy you've decided to join our little group

 

[rebrascora]

Hi.
I'm not sure if internal laying will show up in an x-ray. It is usually just the egg yolks, released from the ovary that get deposited in the abdominal cavity, so they may not be apparent on an x-ray.

The common causes of abdominal swelling.... which usually leads to soiled or lost feathers below the vent, runny poop and penguin stance are:-

1. Internal laying..... which can lead to ascites (water belly) and/or Egg Yolk Peritonitis
2. Ascites caused by some other means.... liver, kidney or heart disease/failure.
3. Salpingitis..... where an infection in the oviduct causes egg matter to build up and solidify.
4. Tumour.

Internal laying with associated ascites is probably the most common. Yolks fail to travel into the oviduct when they are released from the ovary and drop into the abdominal cavity each day, where they build up. The pressure of them over time causes fluid to leach out and sit in the bottom of the belly swelling whilst the squashed, solidified yolks float above impinging on the flow of waste through the digestive tract and also putting pressure on the heart and lungs. Hens will usually look healthy, with red combs as they continue to ovulate, but eventually they start to struggle to walk and breath as the mass becomes too large and the digestive tract backs up as only fluid can pass through the areas that are restricted by the masses of yolks. The hen will probably feel quite heavy due to the mass of yolks and fluid but start to lose condition (breast muscle will waste) and may also experience crop issues as the digestive tract slows down.

Salpingitis will cause similar digestive impaction, but usually there will be no associated ascites.

Unfortunately most of these issues will become fatal and are not reversible unless caught early enough. Hormone implants are being successfully used by some people to prevent internal laying from progressing but are expensive and need to be repeated every 3-6 months. Salpingitis may respond to antibiotics if it is caught early enough but usually it has progressed too far and removing the large mass of infected eggs (lash eggs) is impractical.
Ascites can be drained with almost immediate relief but unless the overriding problem causing it is addressed, it will reoccur, so only a temporary solution, which might buy the hen a few more weeks or months if repeated.
Tumours will be terminal, especially if they are large enough to cause a penguin stance/walk.

Unfortunately a penguin stance is likely to be an indication that things have gone too far and unless you are prepared to fork out hundreds of £/$ every few months, you might be best to euthanize without incurring more vets fees.

The best way to improve your knowledge of the problem is to do post mortem examinations of the birds (necropsies) to find the cause in each case. I know this is not for everyone, especially when it is a beloved pet, but sometimes there are things to be learned like dietary changes that can be made to prevent others suffering the same fate..... eg. excess carbohydrate from scratch can cause fatty deposits around the organs which can lead to fatty liver, internal laying and heart problems.

I'm sorry I can't offer more hope for your girl. If it was internal laying and you had "the cash to splash" hormone implants would be the way to go and/or draining of fluid in the case of ascites.

 

[tony vaughan]

Hi Tony and welcome to BYC. Sorry to hear about your woes.

hello mr.nonsense, if you don't mind me calling you that i'm hoping everything will turn out well, will know in an hour or so. i'll try and put on pictures of the x-rays for both hens and describe the symptoms in more detail tomorrow. i suspect the symptoms are common to several different conditions. thankfully, i have a couple of vets here in alsace that are happy to help and welcome animals other than cats and dogs.

 

[Eggcessive]

Internal laying with or without egg yolk peritonitis is fairly common in flocks with birds older than 2 years. It can occasionally strike a young pullet in the first year, but less common. Symptoms can include upright posture, waddling, reluctance to walk due to pain, isolating one's self, lethargy, poor appetite, not laying eggs, weight loss in the keel, an enlarged lower abdomen that may be spongy with internal laying or tight with fluid, and some runny droppings with or without yellow egg matter. Here is some reading that may help and a video:
http://www.theveterinaryexpert.com/backyard-poultry/egg-yolk-peritonitis/
http://scoopfromthecoop.nutrenaworld.com/laying-issues-internal-layers-and-peritonitis/
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2014/12/salpingitis-lash-eggs-in-backyard.html
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...ions-my-youtube-video-graphic-photos.1201052/

 

[tony vaughan]

Hello rebrascora. Thank you for the great reply. Lots of information that is very useful to know. The vet had an emergency case on, so I brought the hen home for the night and the vet will have another look in the morning.
It’s been quite a while since she produced an egg, and what you are saying about the yolks building up in the cavity makes sense. There has not been any shell less eggs, or egg debris. Thanks again for the time to write and share your thoughts. All the best.

 

[tony vaughan]

Hello eggcessive. Thanks for the reply. I am trying to remember if I had seen anything suspicous in the past that might indicate salpingitis. If it is salpingitis I suspect she has had the problem for quite a while but only recently shown the symptoms. Thanks for the links. A lot of food for thought. Will be interesting to hear what the vet thinks in the morning.

 

[rebrascora]

Not producing eggs for quite a long time whilst looking like she should be laying ie good condition and nice plump red comb and acting normal are usually indicators of internal laying or salpingitis. With the latter, they may show signs of struggling to lay or actually lay a lash egg, it depends how high up the infection is and how many eggs have been infected. It is usually when things get really backed up that they stop ovulating, but by then their whole system is under tremendous pressure.
I think you may have been confusing internal laying with being egg bound. The latter is when a fully formed egg with albumen and shell, or sometimes a lash egg has travelled all the way down the oviduct and is ready to be laid but gets stuck in the cloaca, blocking both the oviduct and the digestive tract, which rapidly backs up with waste material and the bird will die within a few days if it is not cleared as the bird has a build up of toxic waste that cannot be eliminated.
Internal laying and salpingitis usually go on for weeks or months before you realise there is a problem and you don't see an egg from the hen during that time. I had one last year that was internal laying and walking like a penguin last summer. I didn't know much about it then and I don't have the funds for veterinary assistance for my chickens so I just monitored her and after she went into moult, her condition improved and she was walking much more comfortably through the winter and seemed quite happy until her comb went red in February and her belly started to swell again and I realised that she had started ovulating again but no eggs were coming out. That was when I started doing some research, but sadly by then she was too far gone. I made her as comfortable as I could but euthanized her once she started struggling to breath and didn't want to eat anymore.
The Lupron or Superlorin implants stop them from ovulating and their bodies are able to reabsorb some of the fluid build up, once it is not being added to each day. The solidified egg yolks remain in the abdominal cavity but seem quite stable providing there is no infection introduced.... draining the fluid off with a needle can introduce such an infection. The implants may well help Salpingitis (infection of the eggs in the oviduct) as well as internal laying as both conditions build up a mass of egg material that cannot be released from the body. If you want some advice from people who are using the implants I will see if I can find some links to their posts....

Here is one of the threads....
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/lupron-hormone-injection-for-ascites.1175850/

and another....
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...is-laying-anymore.643985/page-3#post-13156705