Hen with a bloated/enlarging abdomen‼️PLEASE HELP‼️

[BDutch]

Dont get me wrong because I’m no expert in this at all. I’m afraid it is a large infection and life threatening and I don’t know what you can do about it.

I had a hen who laid soft shell eggs once in a while. One day she got a bloated abdomen like your chicken. Just not so much at the vent area. More in front and between her legs. She got very ill and died within 2 days after noticing. I only could give her a comfortable nest (a box on the ground) the last day with some mash food and water in front of her. The other chickens could visit her but here she was not disturbed.
I’m sorry I have no cure. I hope someone else has or that this will pass.

 

[Debbie292d]

Hello everyone,

My 3 year and 3 months leghorn hen has been experiencing a bloated abdomen lately. A few days ago, she was egg bound as i saw her pushing, but soon after I didn’t see any egg come out of her and she was fine afterwards. Then I started to see her abdomen looking unusual and big. She is still eating and drinking. She is active but not as active as usual. Her poop seems to be normal/solid. Her breathing also seems normal to me. I have heard a lot of threads about egg yolk peritonitis and ascites but i’m not sure what to diagnose her with. If you have any thoughts/suggestion, please comment them ASAP!

Below are pictures of her abdomen/physical appearance:

Much appreciated,
Valerie

Is her bloated abdomen hard or soft? If soft, I'd start suspecting water belly (ascites ) that you already figured it could be although you didn't mention any other symptoms such as breathing heavily, gurgling sounds or possibly walking funky.

 

[LaFleche]

Hello LaFleche, thank you tor your reply! She was attacked by a hawk months ago but was taken cared of and recovered. That is the only reason i could think of that would cause that. Do you think she could be suffering from egg yolk peritonitis or ascites by any chance?

With her being a White Leghorn and your description that might very well be the case.

But also the blueish discolorations could have been caused by her ingesting rat poison or a previously poisoned mouse or rat. Which would lead to internal bleeding and bloated abdomen as well.

And last not least she could be starting to moult which leaves her abdomen more exposed than usual and would also account for the decline in egglaying.

As long as she is behaving normally, there is not much one can do as we don't really know what is going on.

You could try some days of Calcium 600+D3 for stronger egg shells and vitamin K in case of rat poisoning to stop the bleeding.

 

[EasterChickens]

Dont get me wrong because I’m no expert in this at all. I’m afraid it is a large infection and life threatening and I don’t know what you can do about it.

I had a hen who laid soft shell eggs once in a while. One day she got a bloated abdomen like your chicken. Just not so much at the vent area. More in front and between her legs. She got very ill and died within 2 days after noticing. I only could give her a comfortable nest (a box on the ground) the last day with some mash food and water in front of her. The other chickens could visit her but here she was not disturbed.
I’m sorry I have no cure. I hope someone else has or that this will pass.

Hello BDutch, thank you so much for your reply! Sorry to hear about your hen’s passing. My leghorn hen didn’t experience any extremely ill symptoms even with a bloated abdomen so far. I also don’t know what to think at this point but if she is acting happily, I’ll probably just let her live and eventually she will pass away at some point.

 

[EasterChickens]

Is her bloated abdomen hard or soft? If soft, I'd start suspecting water belly (ascites ) that you already figured it could be although you didn't mention any other symptoms such as breathing heavily, gurgling sounds or possibly walking funky.

Hello Debbie292d, thank you so much for your reply. Her abdomen is soft. I’m also thinking she could be suffering from ascites. She has not experienced any heavy breathing nor gurgling sounds or even walking funky. She pretty much is acting normal except she is just a little more inactive as usual. For example, she would sometimes prefer to lay down and rest for a little bit. However, she still will get up and forage/search the yard throughout the day. Everything else seems normal to me so far.

 

[EasterChickens]

With her being a White Leghorn and your description that might very well be the case.

But also the blueish discolorations could have been caused by her ingesting rat poison or a previously poisoned mouse or rat. Which would lead to internal bleeding and bloated abdomen as well.

And last not least she could be starting to moult which leaves her abdomen more exposed than usual and would also account for the decline in egglaying.

As long as she is behaving normally, there is not much one can do as we don't really know what is going on.

You could try some days of Calcium 600+D3 for stronger egg shells and vitamin K in case of rat poisoning to stop the bleeding.

Hello again LaFleche, thank you so much for your help so far! I will definitely try some Calcium for her soon. I have tried calcium in the past since she was egg bound and her shells weren’t the best/soft.

 

[EasterChickens]

UPDATE:

Hello again everyone,

It has been around 2 weeks since I discovered her bloated abdomen but now she is ironically healthy and has a flat/reduced abdomen. I'm not seeing any blue discoloration/bruising anymore. She is completely healthy again but has some stretch marks on her abdomen probably due to the bloated abdomen she had. To add in, I never treated her with anything during the time of her bloated abdomen. She also hasn't been laying probably because it is fall/molting season. Does anyone know what she maybe was dealing with? Thank you everyone for all of your previous help!

Sincerely,
Valerie

 

[LaFleche]

That is very good news, thank you for the update!