When I went back into the vet after the barium xrays on Monday, they had determined it wasn't GI. She definitely had a thickened proventriculus (I believe that's what I was told). No real answers but she had dropped weight since she had been there Friday, which wasn't good. Basically was told there were two options:
1.) Euthanize and send her body to the Dept. of Ag for a necropsy
2.) Give her 2-3 more days and tube feed to see if she can put on any weight, just in case she's just weak from lack of nutrition
I felt like I had to give her one more shot, after all of this. Opted for the tube feeding. Was taught how to do that and they were using the exact stuff that was recommended above (EmerAid IC Omnivore). She was to be fed 3 times a day and we'd check in on Wednesday to see where she was at. Unfortunately by Wednesday, she still had no improvement and I could tell she was uncomfortable. I made the decision to have her euthanized. Ugh. Immediately after, I took her to the Dept. of Ag, along with the paperwork from the vet. I'm learning a lot from this... even just in procedure, how all this works with the Dept. of Ag.
If anyone is curious, at least in my state, the vet has to contact the Department of Ag and you have to bring paperwork from the vet. When I got there, they told me to come in without the body because there was even more paperwork to fill out. And obviously they have to be careful with contamination/infectious diseases. A guy came out to ask some questions and help me fill out the paperwork. I think either he was performing the necropsy or was kind of in charge of whomever was doing it? Couldn't do too much talking as I was still pretty emotional (and still am...). He was surprisingly gentle and always referred to her as Rachel, which I thought was very nice. He asked if there was anything I specifically was hoping to find out from this. I told him my biggest concern right now was to find out what's going on and if I need to be worried about my other four hens, if I need to do any kind of sanitizing (which I pretty much have already done and do occasionally anyway), etc. I know I MAY not get all the answers but I hope to find out why this all happened and if it's preventable or treatable, or if I just had super bad luck with chickens this year. Eventually when he had all the info, I had to drive around to another area where he met me in a white lab coat. And then he took her inside. I know a necropsy is absolutely the right thing to do here, but it's definitely hard for me to give her up for that.
If I get any more info, I'll update this thread in case it's useful to anyone. I know I rely on other posts here to get info and learn, so hopefully this situation can help others somehow. I really appreciate all the advice and help and support you've all given over the last week or two.
