Metal in the gizzard, kind thoughts welcome

[mintyivyy1]

Despite being the most obsessive protective chicken parents ever…disaster has struck.

Our 6 month old cream bar leghorn seemed a bit lethargic so we took her to the vet. Vet found that there were small metal pieces in her gizzard. Looks a lot like buckshot. But while at the vet, she popped out a very soft egg and perked up quickly.

We clean the coop and roost constantly, spend hours with them each day. We've never seen any thing small and metal, in fact, we make sure that they have nothing of the sort. We even check their yard before they go out.

So I guess I’m searching for hope. As the vet said, hoping the metal is incidental and not lead based. Hoping she just felt down/tired because of the soft egg in there. Hoping she can have a nice life still even with the random metal pieces in her gizzard. Surgery sounded infeasible. We could treat her for lead now without even knowing if she needs it (drive two hours for in-patient care and leave her there ) but I think that’s a lot for a chicken to deal with. She’s warm and inside now in a dark room sleeping. At least she’s home. Her crop felt big too so we took her food away and I’ll feel it in the morning. She also got fluids.

It’s so hard not to feel like we could have done more even though we built them Fort Knox to keep predators out and take such good care of them. Should we have excavated the whole yard before having chickens?

 

[HumbleAmerican]

Small rounded pieces of metal in the gizzard will pass. (They eat rocks/grit)

I’m not sure a few pieces of shot would be a death sentence either. If it was lead, not sure it passes to the egg.

I personally would keep a close eye on her and keep other issues in mind. Pull food and inspect her crop in the morning when it’s empty. It could be just having egg production malfunctions.

Good luck and keep us posted!

 

[coach723]

Don't beat yourself up, chickens can find things, no matter how hard you try, you just can't find everything. They are closer to the ground and spend the majority of their day looking for stuff. Often small pieces will pass through with no problems, most problems are from large pieces or sharp or pointed things that can puncture a gizzard during grinding. There really is no way to do surgery on a gizzard, it's not in a place you can get to. Usually surgery is only useful if an object is stuck in the crop. If she were to show signs of heavy metal poisoning, this thread has info on what the vet gave for chelating treatment, see post #9:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...ing-video-any-thoughts.1552966/#post-26284592
Passing a soft shelled egg can make them feel pretty bad sometimes, so that may be all it was. Hopefully that will rectify. If she continues to have soft eggs then I would try giving her calcium to see if it helps correct that. Calcium citrate +D, once a day. Sometimes it gets low and will reverse with supplements and then be OK. Do they have oyster shell available all the time in a separate feeder? Different birds can have different needs, and it can also vary over time. It's best to have it available all the time so that those that need it can take it as they want.

 

[mintyivyy1]

Don't beat yourself up, chickens can find things, no matter how hard you try, you just can't find everything. They are closer to the ground and spend the majority of their day looking for stuff. Often small pieces will pass through with no problems, most problems are from large pieces or sharp or pointed things that can puncture a gizzard during grinding. There really is no way to do surgery on a gizzard, it's not in a place you can get to. Usually surgery is only useful if an object is stuck in the crop. If she were to show signs of heavy metal poisoning, this thread has info on what the vet gave for chelating treatment, see post #9:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...ing-video-any-thoughts.1552966/#post-26284592
Passing a soft shelled egg can make them feel pretty bad sometimes, so that may be all it was. Hopefully that will rectify. If she continues to have soft eggs then I would try giving her calcium to see if it helps correct that. Calcium citrate +D, once a day. Sometimes it gets low and will reverse with supplements and then be OK. Do they have oyster shell available all the time in a separate feeder? Different birds can have different needs, and it can also vary over time. It's best to have it available all the time so that those that need it can take it as they want.

Thank you very much, yes, plenty of oyster shells and even extra grit (beyond actual dirt) with probiotics are always available.

 

[mintyivyy1]

Don't beat yourself up, chickens can find things, no matter how hard you try, you just can't find everything. They are closer to the ground and spend the majority of their day looking for stuff. Often small pieces will pass through with no problems, most problems are from large pieces or sharp or pointed things that can puncture a gizzard during grinding. There really is no way to do surgery on a gizzard, it's not in a place you can get to. Usually surgery is only useful if an object is stuck in the crop. If she were to show signs of heavy metal poisoning, this thread has info on what the vet gave for chelating treatment, see post #9:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...ing-video-any-thoughts.1552966/#post-26284592
Passing a soft shelled egg can make them feel pretty bad sometimes, so that may be all it was. Hopefully that will rectify. If she continues to have soft eggs then I would try giving her calcium to see if it helps correct that. Calcium citrate +D, once a day. Sometimes it gets low and will reverse with supplements and then be OK. Do they have oyster shell available all the time in a separate feeder? Different birds can have different needs, and it can also vary over time. It's best to have it available all the time so that those that need it can take it as they want.

Thanks for the

Small rounded pieces of metal in the gizzard will pass. (They eat rocks/grit)

I’m not sure a few pieces of shot would be a death sentence either. If it was lead, not sure it passes to the egg.

I personally would keep a close eye on her and keep other issues in mind. Pull food and inspect her crop in the morning when it’s empty. It could be just having egg production malfunctions.

Good luck and keep us posted!

thank you very much.

 

[mintyivyy1]

Update: she does indeed have heavy metal poisoning. It's crazy because she's been acting super normal and happy. Now we're going to put her on penacillamine, which really scares me because of the possible side effects. I want her to have a good life. We can never eat her eggs now, and I'm horrified that the whole area might be contaminated.

 

[TomNY]

If it is lead shot two things to do: #1 feed granite grit. smooth grit gets passed before sharper grit. #2 limit corn. A high corn diet in wild ducks raises the severity of lead poisoning

 

[allbirds4me]

you can try powdered laxative that DISSOLVES in water( does not gel up) . Walmart has one in their brand equate and Miralax does too , I believe.

A roller magnet would be good to run around the areas where your birds are, can be bought cheap enough at Harbor freight.
you'd be amazed at what those magnets will find that you don't want your birds eating.

 

[mintyivyy1]

you can try powdered laxative that DISSOLVES in water( does not gel up) . Walmart has one in their brand equate and Miralax does too , I believe.

A roller magnet would be good to run around the areas where your birds are, can be bought cheap enough at Harbor freight.
you'd be amazed at what those magnets will find that you don't want your birds eating.

thanks. We learned roller magnets won't pick up lead or zinc, which is the main concern. We may need to test our whole flock for heavy metals, test the soil, etc. we're in a pretty forested, nature-friendly area. trying to figure out if maybe a lot of lead buckshot was buried somehow. we never would have guessed this.

 

[mintyivyy1]

Maybe folks are interested in updates? Not sure-- but also, if someone else has the same issue maybe I can give them hope since I was devastated.

Our BRAVE GIRL passed most of the metal and started chelation (Penicillamine) liquid 2x/day. She also is going to have fiber and laxatives to help bulk up and flush the rest. I can tell she's feeling way better. We now have to test the entire flock for metals, lol, so if anyone wants stories about taking chickens 2 by 2 to the vet and them bringing them back to the roost after dark and then trying to administer medicine to our leghorn...let me know. Hint: absolute chaos and our beloved roo isn't super pleased.

We're trying to stay hopeful, will be doing major work in the yard to try and get rid of anything else.