long story: egg bound, now air in crop. help, please!

[prettypoppet]

(Preface: I work in an animal hospital and have a bit of medical knowledge)

I have an adult (about 3 years old, a rescue so age is aprox.) silkie hen who was found lethargic and panting in the coop yesterday. Exam and x-rays showed she was egg bound. We started with pain medicine (butorphanol injection) and lubing up the oviduct. When that was unsuccessful, we gave a dose of oxytocin (a drug used to induce labor). After the pain meds she ate and drank, passed a small amount of watery stool, but no egg. I took her home, did a warm water soak and gave a second dose of pain medicine. Morning came and still nothing. Upon returning her to the hospital, we decided to sedate her and try to remove the egg manually as the pain medicine wasn't really helping anymore. We sedated her with gas anesthesia but upon attempting to intubate found that we did not have a breathing tube small enough. The doctor I was working with attempted to intubate multiple times. We ended up using a mask to keep her sedated. Heart and air sacs were clear through the procedure. When we tried to remove the egg, it crumbled like paper mache. We removed about 5 mls of egg material and flushed her out with saline. The shell was powdery and I am not overly concerned with it lacerating her cloaca. She has recovered from anesthesia and is taking water. I started her on antibiotics (clindamycin) and an NSAID (meloxicam). Her impromptu nest box is on a heating pad. (I am keeping her indoors by herself, she seems to like her new digs in the bathtub). She seems much more comfortable than she was this morning, but still not her usual self.

My current concern is this: It seems her crop is filled with air. I am afraid that, in the attempt to intubate, an air sac was damaged, or perhaps the tube allowed air to enter the crop. I tried to aspirate the bubble with a 25 gauge sterile needle to no effect. I also induced vomiting once. I can feel the bit of grit that was on the x-ray in the bubble. She drinks water like it's going out of style, but refuses even her favorite foods. I have added vitamins and e-lytes to her water in an attempt to supplement. I'm going to skip tonight's narcotic in an attempt to get her eating...

Should I withhold food? Offer a liquid diet? What else can I do? She is my baby!

 

[CMV]

Why is the vet you worked with not involved in the post-op care? We can offer advice, but if you have been working with a vet I would continue to do so. The vet should be able to offer better advice than a bunch of novices.

Good luck.

 

[7L Farm]

I agree with CMV. You need to get in touch with the vet that now knows your baby he should help you with your girl. Sure your trying in every way to help her I totally understand that & respect you for wanting to nurse her back to good health but the vet should also want to as well. I had a girl go egg bound & went to the vet he tended to her but also had his assistant call me to see how she was a few days later. I ended up back at the vet & ended up putting the girl down & I never thought I would miss a chicken but I do.

 

[stargirl]

It souns like you've worked really hard to help this hen, and I hope your vet can help you come to a happy conclusion with this latest problem.

 

[prettypoppet]

Because I work at the vet, Bean is here with me everyday for care. We are not an avian vet. The doc and I do research and try to help as best we can. I was really just wondering if you all had any advice or additional thoughts on her care.

Today she is much more perky. She is preening and it looks like she may have eaten a bit in the night. She is adamant about staying in the nest box today and seems to be looking for her egg. She will push, then get up and look to see if anything came out. I wonder if I should give her an egg so she relaxes a bit...

 

[7L Farm]

Didn't know that. Does she in fact have an egg inside her that she can't get out ? If so I've heard you can soak her in a sink with warm water & massage her some not where the egg is because you do not want to break the egg. When mine was egg bound the vet gave her antibiotics & then lubed the egg inside her. I then returned her to the flock as instructed by the vet. I think around 4 days later the egg was gone. I never saw the egg. But I did see her lay once more. Then she got egg bound again back to the vet but this time egg broke inside her. Dr said this will probably continue with her & suggested to put her down. Which I agreed didn't want to but she was leading a terrible painful life. My little baby that was her name got to the point where she couldn't even jump 2 feet up & lost alot of weight & was running a fever. I hope you can save your girl.

 

[prettypoppet]

Update

This afternoon Bean was declining rapidly. In a last attempt, I took another x-ray and found there are TWO eggs. I manually removed the lower of the two, misshapen and small with a soft powdery shell. I am waiting for some pain medicine to take effect before attempting to remove the second, which is also soft shelled but very large. The x-ray shows that the larger of the two is obstructing her digestive tract, thus the reason for her refusing food.

I will post an update this evening or when I have more information.

Thanks to everyone for their advise and thoughts.

 

[Memphisjourney2seramas]

Good luck! I will be thinking of you today.

 

[CrazyFowlFreak]

I would be careful with all the pain medicine as it may be making her muscles more lax and it more difficult to push the eggs out.

 

[7L Farm]

My thoughts are with you & your girl . I know what your going through.