large lump

[tblee]

I have a young hen who has developed a large lump near her vent, it has been growing steadily for the last couple of months at quite a fast rate
she still lays every other day and doesn't seem to bothered by it and she keeps good health and is active
to the touch it isn't hot there is no head or discharge it isn't hard or soft
if anyone has seen anything like this before could you give some info thanks

 

[chicmom]

Oh my, it looks like she's got a little cow's udder. I wish I had some advice for you......

 

[tblee]

Well this morning I decided something had to be done as it was just about touching the ground so I had a closer inspection as I had some help to hold her with my husband being on holiday although don't think he was too happy about getting dragged out of bed
Anyway I made a small incision as it was quite soft in some area's and spent all morning cleaning it out, from what I could feel I reckon it was full of small cysts just under the skin, it took a lot of saline to be syringed into the incision for the puss to come out as it was very thick but it now looks like a deflated beach ball poor girl but she should be feeling a lot better now the pressure is off she was a very good girl she was more worried about missing breakfast than anything else
I will keep a close eye on her and clean it out tonight again hopefully it will carry on draining throughout the day but she's fine and actve so I'm nit too worried about her

 

[krista74]

Oh my goodness! Your poor chicken!

I must say though, you have handled this exceptionally well - and much better than I ever could have.

You might want to consider keeping her separate from any other hens you have until she heals up. The minute the others notice blood or an open wound they may react by pecking at her.

Other than that, keep the wound clean, keep her nice and warm, and feed her up.

Good luck, and please keep us updated.

Krista

 

[tblee]

Thanks for the advice this is a bit strange but there is no sign of any blood during cleaning out only a massive amount of creamy coloured discharge which I believe to be puss very offensive smell
there is an area of skin which is dead on the outside of the lump which burst open when I was syringing in the saline soloution
I'm hoping that all the liquid puss is out now as I could only feel hardness inside at the top ,this area has a large lump undrneath but at the bottom I can feel lots of little lumps kinda like marbles but they feel attached to the inside of the skin
I will clean it out again tomorrow there is also is a lot of air that keeps building up inside which gets released during cleaning out
she herself has not shown any signs of illness or distress and is eating and acting normally I have applied tea tree oil to the outside of the skin and she climbed up to roost as she does each night to her fav bar
I will try and take more pics tomorrow when I check in on her :/

 

[SMHChickens]

Hi. I was wondering if you could let me know how your chicken is doing now. I have one that is suffering from the same problem, which I just discovered yesterday, but I think she may have been developing the lump for some time. Mine is an easter egger. I will take a picture of her this morning and post it. I'd like to know whether your procedure turned out well in the long term! I might try doing the same thing if your chicken made it through & recovered.

Thanks so much.

 

[SMHChickens]

Here's a picture. Not the best, but it was hard to get one that showed the problem. It is larger than it looks in this photo.

 

[SMHChickens]

In case anyone checks, I just wanted to follow up on this post from 2 years ago. This is my hen, "Hawk," an Easter Egger. She has continued to live a busy and productive life and this problem she had, when she was about 10 months old, doesn't seem to have hurt her overall quality of life. Once she molted, she grew feathers back over the lump, and it also seems to have decreased in size so that I don't notice it anymore. In case you have a chicken with this type of lump - give it time. Your chicken may be just fine, even though it looks uncomfortable. I never did figure out exactly what was wrong with her. She is fully three years old now, and had a life of foraging and enjoying the things chickens enjoy, while laying eggs every other day until just recently.

So, it was good news in the end. All is well that ends well!