Internal egg breakage

[LaurenMS]

Hi everyone,

Yesterday morning, I found my 6 year old Silkie hen listless and sick-looking. Actually, she was in the egg-laying position, and making a certain clucking she makes when she is about to lay an egg. But she never laid, and soon passed feces with obvious egg material. There was already quite a bit of egg on the floor. We took her up to the house, where she passed a few more eggy feces. A few hours later, she no longer appeared uncomfortable and walked around outside very much normally.

I'm guessing that her sick appearance was due to discomfort of the egg inside. Even though she's feeling better, and now passing normal-looking feces, what I'm worried about is the possibility of her developing egg-yolk peritonitis. I'm trying to ward it off by giving her a high-potency probiotic.

Any advice would be appreciated!!

Lauren

 

[McChix]

Hi, Lauren.

I searched this site and found this post on 9/12/07 - hope it helps (not sure about how to do this quote thing):

keeperofthechickens This weekend my eldest hen I had recently adopted had an egg break insider. It smelled horrible.

Found her on Sunday acting really lethargic and I picked her up and could see rotten egg oozing out.

Well I got out the dog first aid kit and flushed her inside area with a syringe full of saline solution. It seems to get a lot of the egg out.
Well now it has been 3 days later and she seems much better. Finger crossed.

So my question is has anybody tried saline solution too? Just woundering if that was the determining factor or if it's just a real tough old hen pulling through on her own.

 

[patandchickens]

For whatever it's worth, I ended up having a vet break the 'stuck' egg inside Matilda several weeks ago. I assume the pieces eventually came out and got eaten but I never saw 'em. However, despite no antibiotics she seems perfectly fine now (other than not laying at all, but I think she's laying internally which may eventually catch up with her but no obvious ill effects yet).

So an egg broken inside the reproductive tract does not *necessarily* lead to infection. If it were me I'd just make sure your hen has plenty of warmth and good nutritious food and as little stress as possible.

Good luck,

Pat

 

[LaurenMS]

Thank you very much for your advice. I was glad to know this didn't neccesarily spell doom. Just to let you know, she's been doing just fine...perfectly active and normal!

 

[paganfish]

I don't remember where I found this rescue remedy for it but it's was:

with a warm water/sugar solution swab the vent then put some Preparation H or similar in the vent too.

I tried it on mine and she was fine...is fine.

I'll look to see where I found it.

Good luck!

PS In the case of my hen...the partial egg sac was soft.

 

[ole-crone]

Speaking of stress, and ironically Paganfish said the word "Rescue Remedy" --- has anyone ever used RR with their chickens? It is a flower essence that helps with stress. Of course, you'd have to water it down (brandy based).

We use it regulary as does a friend of mine. I don't know how it works - only that it does. It also isn't just all in my head (that it works) because the night our old dog was dying it helped to keep him calm. He was a lab who had dealt with cancer for years and of course the 'time came' when no vet was available. He was crying, having seizures and it was just so sad. I decided to try to get him as comfortable as possible until the morning when we could take him to the vet and euthanized. I'm an herbalist (hence my nickname 'ole crone') and went to my shelf of books to figure out what we had on hand to help. I settled on arnica for pain and Rescue Remedy to relax him. I did not water them down - he was a huge dog. I gave him an eyedropper full of each and he would almost immediately calm down. If he started to cry or have seizures again, I'd give another dose. Two doses and he was able to sleep. He died peacefully in his sleep later that evening. I still amazes me that the tiny bit of RR he received was able to calm him down so much.

So, seems like it would work on a stressed chicken as well.