Picture of swollen hen underside, Need Help identifying what's wrong

[msboejangles]

Hello,

Here is a picture of my sick hen I took today after I cleaned her vent. I'm hoping someone might recognize this and have an idea of what's happening with her.

After a few days of her looking sad and wattling and figured I would see if there was anything I could do to help her. For the past three days she's been separated from flock and I have been giving her 3 full syringes of diluted Terra Vet 10 (tetracyline hydrochloride) in accordance with the package mixed with a small amount of mashed garlic twice a day. She's been eating papaya, potatoes, turmeric, and some cooked veggies. She's actually starting to look perky, but still inflamed. Yesterday I had to stop giving her the syringe because after the last dose she started weezing and it sounded like water was in her lungs, so I've mixed the solution in her food.

She's normally free range, so I put small cage around her so she can still be with her peers. Any help would be very appreciated. Thank you for reading.

 

[Eggcessive]

Welcome to BYC. There are quite a few threads about hen with similar looking enlarged red bottoms like that here are BYC. Some feel that it can be a hernia, cancer, a cyst, a reproductive problem, a teratoma, or other things. I'm not an expert on any of those, but if you do a search here at the top of the page on "swollen area under vent," there will be plenty of threads to read.

 

[msboejangles]

So after doing tons of research I was obviously stumped-- which is why I posted this new thread for help. I posted on chickenforum.com as well, and fortunately, there were two people kind enough to give me some advice. We concluded that it was most likely vent gleet from moldy food, and the swelling was from a secondary infection caused by the vent gleet. They advised me to give her .5 cc of penicillin twice a day for 3 days. I also put mashed garlic, (1-2 large cloves/gallon) in her water and food, (which was mostly potatoes, vegetables, and raw egg, mixed with lots of water). While giving the penicillin shots I noticed little red lice on her, so I treated her with some fowl lice treatment from my local feed store.

I had her in the cage above and fed the rest of the chickens around her so it was like she was still in the flock, so letting her lose back into the flock was easy and she's maintained her pecking order status. She's going to be getting yogurt for about a week now that she's off the antibiotics to restore her antibodies and the flora imbalance caused by the vent gleet. So I hope this helps anyone who has a similar issue.