Please help diagnose our poor chicken! Anything else we can try?

[tiffhope]

Breed:Rhode Island Red chicken

Age: 3 years old

Where they live: We have 8 chickens who graze in a forest area in Washington State. They eat Scratch and Peck feed (the best/local feed we have), some corn for fun, bugs, and green plants. They have quite the perfect life, I have to say.

History: This past fall (during molting season) Red had sour crop/peritonitis, we believe. Her crop swelled up and her back side was heavy/full and she looked like she would die. After isolating her inside, giving her baths, and feeding her yogurt, water w/ apple cider vinegar, and giving her a oil enema... she got better w/ in less than a week!! My husband found a soft egg shell out her back end so we came to the peritonitis conclusion.

Current: We found Red outside w/ a poopy bottom. She wasn't walking around and strong as usual so we looked at her bottom. It had tiny maggots on a little sore! Ahh! We cleaned her off and found the sore did not burrow into her...guessing the diarrhea she had attracted flies.

So we've been bathing her and massaging her bottom, gave her some oil enemas a few days ago, isolated her inside, tried yogurt and apple cider vinegar, and she's about 40% better. It will be a week on Saturday.

Her crop never got distended this time... her back end was massive but now it's about 80% less swollen. She's been pooping out either yellow/milky substance or crayon-green chunks w/ some brown poo.

She just started drinking water yesterday. The only thing she would take before that was raw milk we have from a local good dairy. She is also taking small amounts of millet. She still has little energy and when we take her outside she lasts about 20 minutes then goes and isolates herself under the flower bushes.

Ok...that's our story...we'd appreciate any advice you could give us! thanks!

 

[cafarmgirl]

It sounds very much like she may be having internal laying issues. This in turn can cause infection (peritonitis) and the swollen lower abdomen. Unfortunately birds who develop this just do not have good outcomes. If you have a very good, very experienced avian vet who is willing to attempt a spay surgery that is about the only solution but very often these birds are not good candidates for surgery. By the time they are swollen up like that and possibly infected the prognosis for surviving such a major surgery is very low.

If infection is present, a vet can tell by looking at the fluid withdrawn by needle from the abdomen, antibiotic's can help control it and that, along with draining off the fluid, can help the bird feel better and may give it some extra time. But the condition will come back due to whatever the underlying cause is.

The other possibility is that she has some other problem with a major organ, heart, liver or kidneys that is causing the fluid build up (ascites). This fluid buildup can also become infected and cause the poopy butt and laying the occasional soft shelled egg.

If they don't get infected these birds can sometimes live for some time, although the fluid build up does make them uncomfortable. Once they get peritonitis they usually don't last much longer unless it's treated.

 

[tiffhope]

Thanks so much for your reply cafarmgirl... we can't help but keep our hopes up be we agree it doesn't look promising. Thanks for the support.