Hi friends, I have a 1 year old sex-link brown (ISA brown, I think is the other name) hen. 8 days ago, she started acting slow: slow to leave the coop, slow to run for food, slow to peck at the ground for treats... acting like her head was in a fog. She's been missing all the peppiness of normal chickens. The other 25 are just fine. 3 days ago, I realized her lower abdomen was getting swollen and hard. I compared her to the other hens as they were getting ready to roost for the night. I cleaned out the brooder box in the coop to give her separate quarters still in earshot of the flock. For just the last 3 days, I've given her electrolyte water, food with crushed calcium pills, a heat lamp to keep her box at least 70 degrees, and Wed and Thur, I also soaked her in a very warm epsom salt bath for 20 min + applied some KY jelly in her vent.
I can feel more than one (maybe 2 or 3) hard lumps in her abdomen. I'm assuming these are eggs, but I can't feel anything in her vent... no tip of an egg that would indicate something as simple as an egg-bound issue (per the reading I've done). She seems to mostly stand still during the day; I haven't seen her nesting much like she's trying to lay an egg. She eats and drinks a little, but isn't pooping much... like maybe a teaspoon worth a day. I'm guessing she's laid eggs internally or else is so bound up that nothing is getting through. Or else her eggs burst and she's teeming with infection?
Here's my question: I've only had her in the box/cage a few days, but I haven't seen any improvement so far. I feel like she's just slowly (and maybe painfully?) starving to death. If there's any hope she could still turn around, I'll try another couple epsom salt soaks this weekend... but given what I'm seeing, I'm not sure there's any hope of recovery. And if that's the case, I don't want her to suffer any more -- and will cull her, and then see what happened inside. If she's not infected, we'll use the meat, but if everything's all pus and gross, then she'll be vulture food. So, how much longer do I wait and watch her suffer?
I can feel more than one (maybe 2 or 3) hard lumps in her abdomen. I'm assuming these are eggs, but I can't feel anything in her vent... no tip of an egg that would indicate something as simple as an egg-bound issue (per the reading I've done). She seems to mostly stand still during the day; I haven't seen her nesting much like she's trying to lay an egg. She eats and drinks a little, but isn't pooping much... like maybe a teaspoon worth a day. I'm guessing she's laid eggs internally or else is so bound up that nothing is getting through. Or else her eggs burst and she's teeming with infection?
Here's my question: I've only had her in the box/cage a few days, but I haven't seen any improvement so far. I feel like she's just slowly (and maybe painfully?) starving to death. If there's any hope she could still turn around, I'll try another couple epsom salt soaks this weekend... but given what I'm seeing, I'm not sure there's any hope of recovery. And if that's the case, I don't want her to suffer any more -- and will cull her, and then see what happened inside. If she's not infected, we'll use the meat, but if everything's all pus and gross, then she'll be vulture food. So, how much longer do I wait and watch her suffer?
