Pain while pooping, stuck egg, impacted crop? Favorite hen! Help!

[HopieGirl4Ever]

I have a 3-4 year old blind Easter Egger who started looking less energetic about a week ago. She lives separated from the others, in a pretty large covered enclosure, with a nice calm old rooster. Despite being blind she's always done a good job of finding her food and water by herself (and I've spied on her to make sure. She's totally good.) And she's normally in pretty good health, I think she's just a bit more delicate. We have had a few instances before when she's gotten really weak without much indication, but she'd recovered completely and pretty fast. We had a big scare in November when she got VERY weak, I have no idea how she didn't die, honestly. We took her to the vet and they said she had no worms or anything, they gave her some shots and gave me antibiotics for her and she was fine soon after. I'm just concerned because that wasn't too long ago and now she's got a problem again.

So, about a week ago, she started being a bit less energetic, she had one day when she was really weak, now she's doing a little better. A bit puffed up, slow, not very much appetite, all she'll eat is a little bit of mealworms. She's lost weight. She's had a bit of somewhat hard stuff in her crop that I don't think has gone away, I forgot to check this morning. I massaged it a bit yesterday, and I've been adding little bit of chick grit to her food to help grind up anything.

She's normally very quiet, but yesterday I noticed that whenever she poops, only a little comes out, and she clucks in pain. Her droppings are kind of slimy looking, clear with white swirled in. I felt inside her vent yesterday and she does have a hard egg in there, I don't know whether or not it's intact, but I definitely felt hard shell. I had her drink a little olive oil, and there's ACV in her water. She drank a lot this morning. I also gave her a warm bath last night, massaged her belly then blow dried her. I've been keeping her in a large cardboard box in the garage for the nights.

I'm not seeing a lot of change since yesterday, her droppings are still the same, she's still in pain with them, and no egg.

She's my favorite and means so much to me, so any help is greatly appreciated. We can't afford a vet unless absolutely necessary.

*I just went to check on her and found a long thin hard clump of grass that she'd passed. That was probably part of the crop problem.*

**ETA she lays eggs from time to time, not consistently though.

Thanks!

 

[azygous]

It could be there's a poop plug blocking the egg. Can you do a finger swipe inside the vent to be sure the channel is clear for the egg to pass?

In addition to what you've done, which is great, here's some additional things that will help a hen pass a stubborn egg.

1-Hydrate her. Get some fluids into her by syringe or by tube tino her crop.

2-Moist heat. Set up a crate with a heating pad on low and place a dampened bath towel over it. Then install the hen on the damp towel.

3- Calcium. Give her a 400-500mg tablet of calcium citrate or calcium gluconate. This is extremely effective in laying issues to help resolve them

4- Lubricate the inside of her vent with oil. Lard, Crisco, mineral oil, coconut oil, Vaseline, coconut oil, your choice.

 

[HopieGirl4Ever]

Thank you! She's perked up a bit, she just hates me now because I've been messing with her. Unfortunately we don't currently own a heating pad, but I did lubricate her vent like you asked. I can't feel anything blocking it. That which I think is an egg is still there. I can't really tell but it almost feels like there's some sort of tissue/membrane over it? Could it be something other than an egg, like some bone or something (because she's lost weight)? It does feel smooth and round though. We have calcium citrate in a powder form, so I had her drink a tiny bit of that mixed with water. Because she's drinking a lot on her own I don't really want to try to force hydrate her yet. Even when she's under the weather she's still ridiculously strong and stubborn when I try to get anything into her, and I'm afraid she'd hurt herself.

 

[azygous]

You can achieve the same effect as a heating pad by using a hot water bottle, you know those old fashioned flat red rubber bags? Or take another bath towel, soak it in hot water, wring it out in your washer on the spin cycle to get most of the water out, then substitute that as a heating pad and the moist top towel. You will need to change it out as it cools down, though.

You can also make your own hot water bottle/heating pad by filling a Glad storage bag with hot water and slipping it into another bag to assure it won't leak all over. Change it out as it cools down.

Moist heat is as important as calcium in helping a hen pass a stuck egg. It can take as little as a few hours or as long as three days. Don't give up. Just keep following the protocol of hydration, 400-500mg calcium per day and moist heat.

 

[HopieGirl4Ever]

Great, I have a hot water bottle. I'll do that tonight. Do you think it'll keep hot overnight, or should I just do it for a few hours?

 

[azygous]

Those hot water bottles stay hot for quite a while. If you freshen it just before you go to bed, you can feel confident it will continue to give her the warmth she needs most of the night. Then freshen it up again when you get up in the morning. The more continuous heat, the more this will benefit her.

Just be sure it's not so hot it will burn her. If it burns your arm, it's too hot for her too.

 

[Eggcessive]

There also is a possibility that she might be trying to pass a lash egg, one of the fleshy blobs that sometimes are found inside the abdomen after a necropsy. They are a product of salpingitis an infection of the ovary or oviduct. Hopefully, though she has a real egg or is just impacted with hard droppings, and does not have a lash egg. Here is a link about lash eggs:
https://the-chicken-chick.com/salpingitis-lash-eggs-in-backyard/

 

[HopieGirl4Ever]

I've been doing everything, still no change. She's a little worse today, won't eat or drink, just rests. I don't think she's in pain anymore, I haven't noticed any, and she's passed all the grass that was stuck in her crop, so I guess that's good.

 

[HopieGirl4Ever]

Happy Easter! She passed a very thin-shelled egg, which is broken. I don't know if it broke before or after it left her body. Here's a photo of the shell. Does it look like the entire thing, or do you think there's still more inside her? The dark spot on the paper is her droppings and the inside of her egg. I'm keeping her in the garage at least for a bit today, it's kinda chilly outside. She's still pretty weak and not eating or drinking. Is there anything I should change/add in terms of caring for her?

 

[azygous]

Behavior is one of the best indications of a chicken's state of health. Usually, when a hen is egg bound, once the egg passes, unless there's another egg that was ovulated and is following behind this freshly expelled egg, a hen will perk up and quickly begin behaving normally again.

In this instance, we do know there's a very good possibility that this egg could have broken inside. If that's the case, it's possible for an infection to have already started from bacteria colonizing in the broken yolk and infecting the irritated and inflamed reproductive track. As my personal practice, if I suspect a broken egg inside my hen, I give her a full round of an oral antibiotic. Otherwise, there's a distinct possibility of the infection sterilizing her and ruining her career as an egg producer. Or it can result in chronic reproductive track issues.

I mentioned a second egg following closely behind the first. Along with infection, this can also account for this hen not perking up after expelling this egg. It's more common than people think for two yolks to be released inside of the normal 25 hour egg cycle. (Not talking about double yolk eggs) I've dealt with several of my hens having this issue.

Therefore, I continue treatment for egg binding until the hen passes the second egg or the hen rebounds and starts behaving like she's feeling better.

If you have an antibiotic on hand, I recommend you start your hen on it right away.