is this hen egg bound?

[Tessaturtle]

We recently noticed one of our hens standing and walking with her feet far apart. She pants when she is in the nest box, and she looks really heavy. She feels very solid and big underneath. I tried to take some pics to see if anyone here can tell us if she is egg bound. One of the days she also had a swollen eye, but that resolved itself.

 

[MySweetChickens]

When a hen has an egg inside her oviduct, she is referred to as being egg-bound. Egg-binding can be a life-threatening condition that must be addressed quickly.
Causes

• Calcium or other nutritional deficiency
• Obesity
• Excessively large or misshapen egg
• Oviduct infection
• Premature layer (hen began laying eggs before her body was fully mature)
• Egg retention due to lack of sufficient nesting areas

Possible Symptoms

• Loss of appetite
• Disinterest in drinking
• Shaky wings
• Walking like a penguin
• Abdominal straining
• Frequent, uncharacteristic sitting
• Passing wet droppings or none at all (egg interferes with normal defecation)
• Droopy/depressed/pale comb and wattles

Dangers

• Infection
• Prolapsed uterus
• Damage to oviduct
• Bleeding
• Death

Prevention

• Avoid supplemental lighting with young pullets to avoid premature egg-laying
• Feed layer ration, which is carefully formulated to provide balanced nutrition to laying hens
• Make available oyster shell (or another calcium source) free-choice (never add to the feed)
• Avoid excess treats that can interfere with balanced nutrition in layer ration

Treatment
Calcium (injection, liquid or via vitamins & electrolyte solution)
Warm bath
Apply KY jelly
Massage
To assess whether a hen is egg-bound at home, gently feel on either side of her vent with one hand (think: squeezing the cheeks of a cute kid). If an egg is felt, giving the hen calcium is the first course of action. Absent liquid calcium, vitamins and electrolytes in the water contain calcium and can help. Even if she's not interested in drinking, try to get some into her with a dropper or syringe carefully. If she is too weak to drink, don't try it. The calcium may be enough to get her to pass the egg on her own within a half hour or so.
Put the hen in a tub of warm water for 15-20 minutes, which will hydrate her vent and relax her, making it easier to pass the egg.

After a warm bath, some KY jelly applied to the vent can also help hydrate the cloaca to allow for ease of passage when the egg gets to that point (don’t use olive oil, as it can become rancid). Massage the area around the egg gently towards the vent, being careful not to break the eggshell.At this point, put her in a crate in a darkened, quiet room. If a truly egg-bound hen does not pass the egg within an hour of these measures, the egg may need to be manually removed, which can be dangerous but is possible but proceed at your own risk.

"If she still hasn't expelled the egg, and you don't think she's going to on her own, then you can move to manual manipulation. This only applies if she is still bright and not in shock. Palpate the abdomen to find the location of the egg and gently manipulate it in an effort to move it along. GENTLE is the key word here. If manual manipulation fails and you can see the tip of the egg, another option is aspiration, implosion, and manual removal.

"First, get someone to help you hold the bird very securely while you work (preferably not upside dwn). Then, using a syringe and a large needle (18ga.), draw the contents of the egg into the syringe. After aspiration of the contents, gently collapse the egg all around. You want to do this gently in order to keep the inner membrane of the egg in tact, which will keep the eggshell fragments together.

Last, gently remove the egg. (Copious amounts of lubrication would be good here.) Go slow and try to keep the shell together (although broken). If all fragments do not come out, they should pass, along with remaining egg content, within the next several days."


did some research and found this hope it helps

 

[Tessaturtle]

THanks for the reply I have read about this but am not entirely sure she is egg bound, so I was hoping someone could tell from the pics. She feels really swollen in her underbelly, walks/stands with her feet wide apart, pants sometimes, and had a swollen eye the other day. We did soak her in a warm bath and lube up her vent (which looked fine) but she still looks quite bloated. It doesn't necesarily feel like an egg is in there, but it definitely is pretty full feeling (her underbelly/bottom).

 

[MySweetChickens]

if she is not egg bound then ( i hope not) she could have egg yolk peritonitis
i found this at a site called TheSimpleLifeAintEasy.com

Symptoms of egg yolk peritonitis include:

• loss of appetite/anorexia
• weakness
• depression
• respiratory distress
• lethargy
• fluffed feathers
• yolk-colored droppings
• swollen vent and/or abdomen (the swelling feels spongy to the touch)

does this sound like her at all?

 

[Tessaturtle]

No swollen vent. She still forages and eats. She seems a little anti social, ie not hanging out with the other girls, but still out and about. You can see by this picture that her eye still seems a little swollen.

 

[MySweetChickens]

how about these ( just trying to help

)

Ascites is most commonly diagnosed at 4 - 5 weeks of age, although signs of ascites have been recorded in day-old birds Low oxygen status of embryos during incubation may be related to the onset of ascites
Panting is often observed in ascitic birds even in the absence of apparent heat stress. This panting in ascitic birds is due to physical restriction of the large abdominal air sacs. The excessive abdominal fluid accumulation results in a reduction in the volume of air that is exchanged per respiration. Gurgling sounds often accompany panting. Julian (1993) observed that the abdomen of ascitic birds is often dilated (enlarged) because of ascitic fluid in chickens that have an increased respiration rate and reduced exercise tolerance.
Older birds which are mildly ascitic may show signs of cyanosis (a blue discolouration of the skin) especially around the comb and wattles. Cyanosis is also a condition for which birds are condemned at the time of processing, and it is often an indication of early stages of ascites. Cyanotic birds have been observed to die spontaneously, especially when excited. Post mortem analyses of ascitic birds indicate that the skin and tissues are congested and they are often a dark red colour (Figure 2).
or

Tumors
Several diseases, such as Marek’s disease, lymphoid leukosis and various adenocarcinomas, cause tumors and enlargement of a chicken’s internal organs, such as the liver, which might, in turn, distend the abdomen. Tumor diseases tend to be chronic, and affected chickens slowly suffer weight loss and decreased appetite. All day-old chicks should be vaccinated for Marek’s disease at the hatchery. Lymphoid leukosis can be transmitted from hens to developing embryos; therefore, disease-free chicks should be purchased from reputable hatcheries. There is no treatment for tumor diseases.
3. Fat Deposition
Extremely obese hens have a thick fat pad that can distend the lower abdomen. Obesity, normally caused by high-energy diets, also predisposes chickens to a condition called fatty liver hemorrhagic syndrome, where the liver is infiltrated with fat and can contribute to abdominal distension. The syndrome causes acute death in chickens when blood vessels in the liver rupture and cause internal bleeding. It’s seen increasingly in backyard and pet chickens that are fed table scraps high in calories. It’s also very common with small-scale flocks fed free-choice via feeders. Chickens should be fed a well-formulated and appropriately portioned diet to avoid FLHS.
4. Cystic Oviduct
Normally, only the left ovary and oviduct of the hen are functional, but sometimes, the right oviduct is functional and becomes cystic. The cysts appear in a range of sizes, and overly large cysts can distend the hen’s abdomen and compress internal organs. Your veterinarian might be able to drain the cyst nonsurgically using a sterile syringe and needle.
5. Impacted or Egg-Bound Oviducts
These oviductal disorders are seen in obese hens, older hens or pullets that come into lay too early. The oviduct becomes blocked by an egg or a mass of broken eggs and eventually eggs are pushed back into the body cavity as the hen continues to lay. Affected hens walk like penguins when the eggs in the abdomen are excessive.
There is no technical difference between impaction and "egg-bound;” however, I don’t like using the term egg-bound, as it’s more appropriate for what happens in pet birds, such as parrots, where one fully formed egg is stuck in the oviduct.
In chickens, the obstruction can result from several lodged eggs or a mass of broken shells, shell membranes, or a mass of yolk and egg white, and the result is the same. When impaction occurs in the front part of the oviduct (aka uterus), which is usually the case, eggs enclosed by shell membranes might be found in the abdominal cavity. This indicates that eggs continued to form but were refluxed back into the peritoneal cavity. The prognosis for affected hens is poor. The use of antibiotics might prolong an affected chicken’s life for a few months, but it will eventually die from the condition.
6. Salpingitis
This inflammation of the oviduct occurs frequently and can be introduced through the cloaca by various means, including pecking. The most common infection is by E. coli bacteria. In later stages of the condition, the oviduct and abdomen become distended due to masses of foul-smelling, cheesy contents in the oviduct. The cheesy masses are sometimes mixed with egg contents; as a result, salpingitis can frequently be confused with an impacted oviduct.
A chicken with salpingitis can remain healthy for a long time—until the late stage when oviductal contents start to impinge on vital organs. The chicken then becomes sick, refuses to eat and slowly declines. Antibiotics seem to help only temporarily, and while some veterinarians might attempt surgery, the chicken’s oviduct is so friable that the procedure is unlikely to be successful. Affected birds will die.

does any of these sound like her found this on a site called 6 Causes of a swollen abdomen