Hen died from sudden prolapse—what caused this?

[Tunie B]

My beautiful young Olive Egger hen, Blackberry, died suddenly today.

Unfortunately, I only discovered her prolapse about 30 minutes before she passed. I do not know if her flockmates caused it to worsen—I did not realize that was her issue until I went out this evening, saw her on the ground between the barn & a coop, and then saw her insides lying beside her. I went to get warm water, prep H, sugar, gloves, etc…But she had passed when I returned.


She was lethargic last night and hiding in the barn today. I knew something was up—she did not follow the flock to roost last night. I had to pick her up and bring her to barn.

I have had several losses in last 6 months—birds losing weight, being lethargic. I thought Blackberry was headed down the same path.

I love my birds and am not sure what to do to avoid this again. I plan to deworm everyone again (did last spring with goat Safeguard), just in case diarrhea was the cause (I’m seeing dirty butts).

I also have 3 roosters for what was 20 hens (2 bantam roosters, one standard). This balance was more reasonable with nearly 30 hens, but numbers are dropping.

Is prolapse caused by diarrhea? A normal glitch in laying? I usually buy Kalmbach layer feed. Sometimes I use Purina Layer Pearls (so I know there’s calcium).

I’m going to take a stool sample into the vet for fecal float, but—what else can I do?

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I'm very sorry for your loss but I'm afraid I have no answers for you. I also lost a hen suddenly to prolapse, it was horrible. When I found her it was too late to do anything but put her down out of compassion, poor thing. Hopefully one or more of our Educators will respond and give some insight as to what causes this. I too would dearly love to know.

 

[PopoMyers]

So sorry for your losses. Unfortunately, what you described tells me that she indeed had a prolapse, but with her insides laying beside her probably means that the other chickens saw it at the beginning, and proceeded to peck at her vent and pulled out her intestines. It is so sad to find any bird this way. I have one right now being treated since yesterday, and luckily I saw it when it was roosting time and I was able to catch her. It is certainly more difficult to observe this when you have a large flock. Observation is key. My current patient also has gleet, so she had a very messy vent. She had been not doing so great for the past week, now I

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I see you have a rooster. Any time you have non-layers along with your laying hens, it can be a good idea to feed something that does not contain calcium. So you might switch from a layer feed (which DOES contain calcium) to a grower or all-flock formula, and offer calcium separately in the form of oyster shell in a separate vessel on the side. Your layers will help themselves, all others will simply ignore it.