Help! sick hen w/ swollen vent area, not pooping, leaking green/white fluid

[friendlysmile]

Can anyone please tell what might be wrong with my hen and how to help her? We noticed today that she was not acting normal. She was not moving around and eating with the other hens but squatting like she needed to lay and egg or poop. My husband and I looked at her vent area and she is leaking green and whitish fluid and it is very swollen and missing most of the feathers. She keeps squatting and looking like she needs to poop or lay but i can't tell which. My husband manually checked her vent but said he could not feel anything. We syringe fed her some water and vegetable oil but she still hasn't pooped. I feel so sorry for her, she looks so uncomfortable, but i'm not sure how to proceed or if there is any hope for her.

 

[speckledhen]

The green/white poop probably means she isn't eating well or she isn't processing what she is eating. She probably has egg yolk peritonitis, and sadly, there is rarely permanent recovery from it.
She is straining because her abdomen/oviduct feels "full", but she can't get anything out. The oviducts may be completely blocked by solid infection mixed with cooked egg yolk as well as her abdomen.

Please review the threads below :



https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=362422

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=195347

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...ences-on-egg-reproduction-production-necropsy

 

[lizage]

Here's my recent experience with my hen...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...t-egg-bound-update-we-had-to-put-her-down-eyp

 

[TomNY]

Vent Gleet is a fungal infection with these symptoms. It's curable if it's treated before tissue is eroded by the infection. Clean the area and use an antifungal spray or salve and an antibiotic for secondary infection. After treatment give a probiotic to replenish gut flora. Good luck, Tom

 

[Lollipop]

While the peritonitis theory is probably correct, try one more thing before you give up. Mix some mollasses in her water. Make it look like weak tea and give it to her for a day. Mollasses is a natural laxative for fowl. Just try it and let us know how she fares..........Pop

 

[speckledhen]

It's fine to try what Pop says. Can't hurt since, if it's EYP, there isn't much you can do other than a high dose of penicillin and wait and see. Once they start up with those reproductive infections, they are chronic.

I sort of doubt vent gleet, unless it's definitely just the vent and not the abdomen that is swollen. I've had so many hens dying from internal laying who, at the end, their poop is exactly as you describe. And they would strain and act like they wanted to expell an egg, but no luck. Vent gleet is fungal in nature and I don't recall reading about that resulting in a bloated abdomen, though none of my birds have ever had it. I don't think a fungal treatment would hurt if you wanted to cover your bases.

My latest hen to pass on died of ovarian cancer and we were forever hosing off her petticoat fluff of green and white poop which was so runny, it saturated her feathers constantly for a couple of weeks.


ETA: Could you possibly post a picture of her vent area? That might help decide which is the problem.

 

[friendlysmile]

thanks everyone for your help and replies! its comforting to know others have knowledge/experience that i don't i'm pretty sure she is egg bound. just the vent area is swollen the rest of her is very bony. i think she wasn't pooping because she wasn't eating much. she is a Leghorn that has never layed very well. has only ever layed maybe a couple of times a month and she is about 2.5 yrs old. i know this because she is the only one of our chickens to lay white eggs. i syringe fed her some kale broth and warm coconut oil mixed with water today and she has perked right up. even ate some kale i put in her crate. not sure what to do from here. any suggestions? i'm not inclined toward heroic measures, but am interested in what can be done for her at this point.

 

[speckledhen]

Quote:
That is exactly what happens with an internal layer at the end stage, in spite of the hen still eating and drinking normally. They lose massive amounts of weight. Her being a Leghorn, a high production bird, with those symptoms, would normally be a clue that you are dealing with an egg issue, though you said she is a bad layer for her breed. She could have had an egg drop into the abdomen, one that was so large it couldn't have passed. Have experienced that with one of my hens. Doesn't sound good for her, I'm afraid.

 

[petyanca]

Any updates on this ? I just lost a hen last Saturday. She was a white leghorn. On Friday she didn't go out of the coop, I took her outside and she just wanted to get out of the way and sit on the ground. At about 4 pm I saw she poops green liquid stuff, probably bile (I didn't know anything about it then). She also walked very slowly and closed her eyes for a minute from time to time. Her comb got a litlle pale at the base. I researched as quickly as I could and thought she might have had a bound egg. I treated her with a warm bath twice and all they say to do when egg bound, but no egg showed up. I then dried her with a towel. She walked a bit outside, drank quite a bit of water, and even walked up to the coop. She tried to jump up on the roosting bar twice but failed, and went up to the nest. I took her inside the house and put her in a box with a fleece jacket around her for the night. In the morning she was dead.

 

[Jodi Keilman]

Any updates on this ? I just lost a hen last Saturday. She was a white leghorn. On Friday she didn't go out of the coop, I took her outside and she just wanted to get out of the way and sit on the ground. At about 4 pm I saw she poops green liquid stuff, probably bile (I didn't know anything about it then). She also walked very slowly and closed her eyes for a minute from time to time. Her comb got a litlle pale at the base. I researched as quickly as I could and thought she might have had a bound egg. I treated her with a warm bath twice and all they say to do when egg bound, but no egg showed up. I then dried her with a towel. She walked a bit outside, drank quite a bit of water, and even walked up to the coop. She tried to jump up on the roosting bar twice but failed, and went up to the nest. I took her inside the house and put her in a box with a fleece jacket around her for the night. In the morning she was dead.

*** I'm so sorry for the loss of your beloved hen. I have a hen doing many several things as you have posted. Did anyone ever get back to you on what it could have been? Were you ever able to narrow it down to what you think it may have been?