Prolapse 1 week old chick

[jtallant]

Update: Looks like she may be out of the woods.

Hi all,

Well, one of my pullets prolapsed yesterday morning. I worked all day yesterday with her pushing it back in but everytime she poos it pops right back out. I searched for prolapses in babies but most info was for older hens. My question is this, is there a specific time frame that I should wait before culling? She is not stressed, she is removed from the others, she eats and drinks and is quite active. She is not actively bleeding and her poop looks normal.

I have tried honey, sugar, and prep H to get the swelling down, to no avail. It's a white Jersey Giant pullet exactly a week old yesterday. The others are fine with no pasty butt or signs of any prolapse. This was the smallest chick of the bunch. My dilemma is that she seems so healthy otherwise, should I just wait? How long do I wait? Do I just keep stressing her by pushing it back in?

On the other hand, if this continues the management of this could just get harder and harder, not to mention when she gets older and tries to lay. I am just sick about this trying to decide on the proper amount of time to give her to see how this is going to go. Any advice? I have never had this happen in such a young chick before and am (obviously) at a loss here. Thanks all, J

 

[jtallant]

Update to above, it looks like we are out of the woods so far.

 

[Suzie]

I do so hope that your chick will be OK - I only have experience of older chickens having vent prolapse issues - you are doing all that anyone can to help!

Best wishes

Suzie

 

[jtallant]

Suzie, thanks

. I, too, have only had this happen with an older hen (once). My luck I guess. BUT, it stayed in all day yesterday after one last pop out early yesterday morning. She is still eating/drinking/active, so later today, if all is still going well, I am going to try to reintroduce her to the others. She is pretty upset at being by herself, I think, but on the other hand, she is rather friendly now...

I hope this means she won't do this when she starts to lay. I have wanted these Giants for 2 years now and I was just sick with the thought of starting off with having to cull one so soon.

In case anyone else has this problem and wants to know, I believe what worked finally was I used a very thick sugar paste. I alternated a little honey between each application of the sugar. The prep H did not work, I don't think. I kept her in a fairly dark area, trying to keep her from moving around too much. I have the advantage that I work from home so basically I worked with the chick on my desk where I could monitor literally all day long. I used a Qtip to push the prolapse back in when necessary, very gently, and held for 20 minutes or so each time. The last prolapse yesterday morning was easily visible but much smaller and pushed back in with only the gentle touch of a warm wet cotton ball and no recurrence after that, although I did put some more sugar paste on her bottom.