Help! Gummed up/prolapsed vent. Graphic

[anythingbutsandy]

Thanks, MakNugget & Shchincillas. I think it almost looked a little better when I worked on her this morning. It's about time to go and do it again. Even though I've kept the kennel covered to try to keep her from laying an egg, she layed one yesterday. At least I know she's not egg bound, right?

I have a question about the chicken anatomy -- do they poop and lay eggs from the same orifice?

 

[OregonChickenGal]

Although they don't originate in the same place, ultimately both poo and eggs come out of the same place - the vent. I have found on prolapse's that as soon as the swelling goes down, they will go back in on there own. It takes a few days sometimes. Good luck.

 

[sharol]

I would see the egg as a positive. She may quit "pushing" to some extent if there isn't an egg in there trying to get out.

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[Siler]

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It can be very discouraging. I thought that no matter what I tried or the 100 questions I asked that I'd never treat my hen in time to save her. It took me 10 days to get her to the point of being released. 2 days before I found her in distress in the yard I had lost another hen so I was so afraid that something was spreading. Luckily my fears were wrong and it was just this one hen with a prolapse.

The thought of having to have my face near her bottom and then shove my finger in her hoohaw and shove it back in was not what I had in mind for the day. I used rubber gloves each time not only for me, but for her. I didn't want to make things worse. Think of it this way. Imagine your colon on the outside of your body red and inflamed. You can't stop matter from passing through it and each time it does it's painful. Also the colon is where matter sits when the body is done with the rest of it's processing. Water is removed and vitamin K is formed and then out it goes. The same is with the chicken, but when that is on the outside stuff just keeps oozing out all the time. That can get infected. Flies can lay eggs too. And chicken poop as it it can get really hard really fast and so it's like wallpaper paste sticking to the skin, feathers, etc. Soaking her in warm water will help soften it, but then you still have to clean.

What I did was use a plastic storage tote. I think it holds about 25 gallons. I filled it about halfway with warm water closer to her body temperature then put her in it. At first she might fight, but then she'll calm down. I have a feisty hen so I put a towel on top to keep her calm. I peeked in every few minutes to make sure she was ok. I always wanted to put something in to help soften the poo and to help disinfect and in the end I found that epsom salts and iodine were the best. Just a little not a lot. After her 10-15min soak I let her jump on the edge and began to pick off the poo. In the end I found that using my fingers without gloves worked best. It was NASTY, but my fingernails did the best job. After I picked off as much as I could(and after I cut off some feathers to help keep things clean) I dried her off. Having hubs hold her, facing him and he tilted her just enough so her tail feathers went up, I dabbed on some iodine and using Prep-H cream and pushed her prolapse in(with gloves). Then I used the iodine on my hands to clean them and used a nail brush to get under the nails. I did that twice so I know they were clean.

I tried the honey, but it seemed to make things worse for me so I bought Duramune-10 at the feed store. I added that to her small bowl of water. I used a small glass condiment dish that I had and put in clean water and mixed in about a teaspoon of the antibiotic. I did that twice a day. She also ate more frequent meals daily. I would feed her layer pellets, high protein pellets for most livestock so the bag said, 1 scrambled egg mixed with strawberry Danonino yogurt(high in calcium), and if she wanted more I'd feed her the yogurt from the spoon. I used the duramune for about 6-8 days. I don't remember really. After the antibiotic, I started putting a poultry electrolyte I also got from the feed store into her drinking water. It also has the good bacteria to replenish what we killed off with the Duramune.

I couldn't get her to stop laying eggs tho. I would feed them back to her each day since they couldn't be eaten by me or anyone else. The Duramune would have infected them so for 14 days after treating her I fed them back to her. She gobbled them right up.

The whole time I kept her in a small regular puppy crate and put newspaper on the floor of it. I replaced it at least once a day. I kept that spotless to prevent fly eggs and bacteria from gathering. I also kept the floor around her swept up and mopped daily when I changed her paper. As she got better I would hand feed her other treats like fresh cherry tomatoes from the garden. After a while of her prolapse then better, a sparkle to her eye, but still seeing stinky poop I realized that all that time she had no grit with her food. Duh! So I went outside and grabbed a handful of dirt from the driveway(it's gravel drive). She happily picked through it for small bits of rock. I thought she was going to fill up on it, but she knew what she was doing. Her poo returned to normal in 24hrs. After another day or so I let her go. She had to reintegrate into the flock and had to run from the boss, but she was quickly back to normal once she started standing up for herself. I kept an eye on her for a while and would make sure she wasn't in a spot on the roost at night "of shame". I would put her toward the middle each night if the others had shoved her to the end and she quickly regained her spot high up in the flock.

As for the chicken anatomy, think of the vent as the capitol letter Y. They all come out the bottom, but the eggs come from one side and the poo from the other.

 

[Miss Lydia]

so after a prolapse is this aways going to be a problem with the hen laying an egg? because it seems if they want to lay they will.

 

[shchinchillas]

I've heard it go both ways. After a prolapse sometimes they are fine and don't go through it again. Sometimes they do get another prolapse. If my hen prolapses again, she'll be put down.


I wouldn't be discouraged by the one egg. We had 1 egg laid as well, and after that egg nothing else came while she was kept dark. "Patty" went out yesterday with the flock. She actually stayed very close to people, even curled up with my nephew and coo'd...but eventually she made her way back to the flock and seems to be happy, and healthy. We'll see how things go.


Keep up the good work with your hen!

 

[anythingbutsandy]

Siler, thank you for your compassionate and informative post. It gave me a definite uplift that I desperately needed.

Patience is the name I have given my hen after these 5 days; she is such a sweetheart. Also her name (obviously) reminds me of a certain virtue that I sometimes lack.

I've got to confess that yesterday afternoon when her "sisters" were let out of the coop to free range, she heard them and started up w/ some noise letting me know she wasn't happy, so I succumbed and let her out of seclusion to free-range herself. She went straight to the coop and laid an egg. She then spent some time outside hunting and pecking.

The prolapse hasn't gotten better, but it hasn't gotten wors. My main concern now is that we have a family (human's only) vacation scheduled to leave town on Thursday. One of my BFF's is scheduled to come feed and water my goats and chicks, but there's no way she's going to be poking back in a prolapse. So now my "getting ready to leave on vacation" to-do list includes: "find a vet or some place to house and take care of Patience and her prolapse."

 

[Kittymomma]

Have you looked at the where am I where are you thread for your state? If you're leaving this Thurs. it's not much time, but there may be someone close who would be willing to help out, especially if you would be willing to cover for them sometime. Hope you can find someone, sounds like you're doing a great job with her.

 

[anythingbutsandy]

Kittymomma, I hadn't thought of that! (I'm having one of those "d'oh" moments!)

 

[girlsomine]

I hope I'm not out of line adding to this post. I'm new to the forum. This sounds very similar to what I'm experiencing with one of my "girls". She had a very large, severe prolapse. There was an egg shaped and sized object lodged in it. It was rubbery and the color of cooked egg yolk. We bathed her in warm water and I had to help force the object out of her. We dried her well and applied honey to the tissue. All of that blood red tissue retracted back in over night, but there continues to be a protrusion of the entire vent area. She is constantly dripping liquid as well as feces. When she poos, she just can't seem to get it all out. She's quite a mess on the back end. We've bathed her several times and started her on the antibiotic in her water. I kept her in the dark in a dog cage in our home for the last 3 nights, but there doesn't seem to be any improvement in the swelling. She hasn't laid an egg and her spirits seems to be good.

After reading another post that said not to keep them out of the flock for more than 72 hours, we snuck her back into the coop tonight and place her in the middle of the perch. I don't think she's well though, and I'm not sure how to keep giving her the antibiotic and not give it to the rest of the girls. Would it be best to bring her back in tomorrow? Is there anything else I can do for her other than try to keep her clean and keep her from laying? Any insight you could give would be most appreciated.