Help - Hen poorly with fluid filled chest sac, discharge out beak when held

[4Shadow]

We are so concerned about our 3 yr old hen Lucy. She has been 'off' for over a couple of weeks - still eating and drinking, but slower moving, standing on her own more and standing differently (bit hunched) and sometimes waddled and seemed to have a pretty wide 'base' between her legs. Her comb is getting black at the tips.
Tonight she is worse. She is definitely hunched in her stance, would not follow the other chickens inside for bedtime and is usually first in. She was jerking her head back and forth, side to side, on her way in as we herded her. Once inside she stayed on the floor - she ALWAYS hops up to her roost to sleep for the night.
We were attempting to give her an antibiotic shot tonight that I'd previously picked up at the vets in case it seemed warranted. We discovered a large, fluid filled sac in her chest/crop? area, and while holding/securing her - ALOT of brownish fluid shot out of her beak! This happened several times as we gently tried to position her.
We skipped the shot, thinking we'd better try to figure out what's going on. She has not laid an egg for about a year. She seems to be pooping, but I think in the last day or two I've noticed more liquid in the shavings when cleaning the coop.
Any help appreciated!!

 

[leadwolf1]

Please search sour crop....

 

[4Shadow]

Thank you - we suspected that but were unsure. We tipped her and got a pile more out - she became pretty 'violent' and took a couple of nosedives into the shavings unfortunately. Most of the fluid is gone, and further attempts only resulted in her opening her beak as if gasping. She is very 'rattly' now - hope we didn't get the nasty stuff into her lungs. A pretty good bunch of grass wound together came out in the mix too.
We've set her in a dog crate with ACV water and watered down laying feed. She's just standing there, so we'll hope for the best in the morning. We'll try the mineral oil in the morning...she just seemed like she'd had all she could take for now.

 

[speckledhen]

Forcing that out can make them aspirate and kill the bird.

Same protocol or all sour crop issues. Separate the hen, 24 hours with no food, only water with 1/4 teaspoon of acidified copper sulfate (comes in powder form usually at the feed store) in a gallon in plastic waterer only. If you can't find that, use 2 tablespoons of organic, unfiltered apple cider vinegar in the plastic gallon waterer, changed daily. Day 2, add only plain yogurt. Day 3, add plain scrambled egg to the yogurt. Each day, massage the crop, several times each day, pushing toward the back of the crop, not upward. Day 4, maybe some soupy oatmeal added to the eggs and yogurt, but NO grains. Hopefully, that will clear it up.


Fluid filled is sour crop, not impacted crop. No mineral oil, please! The oil is if the crop is hard as a baseball and impacted. Treatment for impacted crop is different for sour crop, other than the massaging part of it. Things are fermenting in there because they are not moving. Could be she ate some moldy feed somewhere, on the ground or around a compost pile, which would cause sour crop.


She is 3 years old and hasn't laid for a year--that tells me she is probably laying internally. When that happens, often the crop shutting down is symptomatic of the entire body systems shutting down. I've been there many times.

I'm betting your crop issue is not her main problem, but a symptom of her internal malfunction. Unfortunately, you cannot fix internal laying other than a complete hysterectomy by a veterinarian, an expensive and risky procedure.

 

[terryg]

I recently had two hens die of similar symptoms. I did necropsies on them. Both had cancer. The one hen that had putrid liquid come out of her beak (similar to yours) had tumors on her intestinal tract which blocked anything getting through. Cancer is very prevalent in older hens. My two birds were Golden Comets, the hybrid layers, and I find that by 3 years they are worn out and have very serious ailments. You can guess at what is wrong, but many issues, including internal laying and ascites show similar outward symptoms. But, the fact is that for all of those issues, the end result is the same. You can read more about what I found in my hens with this blog:
http://hencam.com/henblog/2012/06/the-kindness-of-euthanizing/

 

[speckledhen]

The thing is, she quit laying at just 2 years old, which tells me it is most likely internal laying, though you cannot rule out cancer, of course. I've found that cancer seems more likely in a hen who is over 4 years old, while egg yolk peritonitis/internal laying seems to hit at around 2 years of age. That's when mine began dying of it, though I did have one hatchery Wyandotte with EYP at a year and a half--the hatchery Wyandottes are so bad for that, in my experience. Either way, it's a death sentence.

In any case, Terry and I would agree that your hen's issue with her crop is only secondary and symptomatic to the real trouble.

 

[4Shadow]

We really appreciate your help and benefit of your experiences - however sad
Lucy's coopmate Dora (also 3 - my first 2 chickens) was on death's doorstep about 2 months ago. Long story short (and $400+ vet bill later) $2 worth of antibiotics brought her around. The vet (who admittedly did not have great comfort in the chicken arena) working diagnosis was egg peritonitis 'gone septic'. Though we had a seemingly miraculous 'recovery' at the time...given the reading I had done at the time - I did have the sinking feeling that we had not cured the underlying condition of internal laying and the resulting accumulation of egg inside.
I'm just realizing now how prevalent this condition is - all of my (now 11) chickens are from a hatchery...sounds like it would have been a better idea to go with private breeders etc? So tough having the realization that we may well go through this (or similar conditions) with all our great chickens, and so soon in their life.
Lucy is upright and reasonably bright this morning (amazingly we did not kill her last night) - she'll stay back in her coop today while the others are outside, and we'll monitor her closely, pick up yogurt, supplies etc...we will not want to prolong her suffering, and it sounds like there is every indication that this is where we are at.

 

[speckledhen]

Of course, you can work on her crop issue so she can get nutrition, but the underlying cause will still be with her. When my last 5 1/2 year old hen was dying from ovarian carcinoma (she had been laying just a few weeks prior, but went downhill fast), her crop became very, very sluggish and she required lots of crop massage. It would begin functioning again, then slow way down. Naturally, it didn't save her to work on her crop, but she was at least getting nutrition until she died.

That's pretty much where you are with your hen right now, I'm betting. She didn't just run out of eggs at 2 years of age--those yolks are going somewhere and it isn't good. A hen can be laying internally and have cancer at the same time-I've seen that when we opened the older ones up who died from the cancer.

These ailments are not restricted to only hatchery stock, however, they are definitely much more prevalent in the common hatchery breeds, in my personal opinion and experience. And I didn't even have any sex links, just the normal Rocks, Wyandottes, RIRs, Orps, etc. The daughters of the hatchery stock do seem to fare better and the farther you are from that first generation hatchery stock, the better, IMO.

 

[4Shadow]

So - I have 2 more common brownish (Isa Brown type?) layers, 2 Barred Rocks, 3 black sex links, 1 Columbian Rock X red, 1 mystery chick - all from hatchery's (except mystery chick plucked off the road) - safe to assume I've surrounded myself with the high risk group? So much for the happy vision of chickens running happily in the yard for up to 10 years just enjoying their retirement?
It's still good to know what we're dealing with...no matter how unwelcome the knowing.

 

[speckledhen]

It's too hard to be definitive. It depends on many things in addition to their overall genetics. I lost every original hatchery hen I had to either internal laying, egg yolk peritonitis, ovarian cancer or a combination thereof, starting when they turned 2 years old and ending with the last remaining hen, who made it to 6 1/2, though she had not laid since she was just over 5 years old. Most were dead by the age of 4. I've lost a couple of crossbreeds, daughters of hatchery stock, to internal laying, but most were direct hatchery descendants.

I have several 5 1/2 year old hens who are daughters of hatchery stock and they are still laying. I have breeder stock hens who are still laying at older than that, several eggs per week, though they take longer breaks to molt than they did when they were younger. I have no idea if they will live much longer. A few have arthritic joints and/or feet.

All in all, my hens out of good quality breeders (not propagators, but true breeders) have done much better. I've never had a blue Orpington who ever had any reproductive issues, for example. They've had some issues with pendulous crop, which tends to be hereditary, but never had any internal laying problems.