I live in South MS where we normally have very mind weather, but not this week, of all weeks.
So Wednesday night my daughter was locking up the chickens and came in screaming, "Help, something's wrong with Stacy!" (her white, 3 1/2 year old, leghorn). I went out with her and discovered what appeared to be a prolapsed uterus.
**GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION**
There was, what I assumed was, her uterus hanging out the vent with a little blood, and a lot of poo all down her bum.
This was the first night of our hard freezes so we gathered her up and brought her into the garage. We rinsed and rinsed and tried to clean her up as best we could including triming feathers that were matted together in poo.
My thought was she laid a thin or shell-less egg because her feathers appeared to be stuck like glue. We took prep-H and smeared it everywhere and tucked everything back inside her, then we put her in a kennel in a heated side room.
Up until yesterday she's been eating well. Yesterday I gave her a 20 minute spa treatment in a warm bath with a light massage and re-tucked her uterus. (We'd been re-tucking twice a day since the original incident, but not last night - Saturday - or this morning.) Everything has stayed inside for 24 hours now, but, like I said, she's lost her appetite. She is still drinking. She's on a low-heat, hot pad in the kennel still. We never found any evidence of an egg being inside her, but her bum is red and swollen.
I guess my questions are:
1) could she be egg bound?
2) how can we help her if she is?
3) is the situation hopeless?
4) can you give a chicken a hysterectomy? I mean I could care less if she ever lays another egg. I just want her to be back to her sassy self.
4) honestly, what should we do?
PLEASE I beg of you be kind. We love our chickens and WON'T eat them so please don't suggest such blasphemy. I just want to make her better/happy/back to normal.
So Wednesday night my daughter was locking up the chickens and came in screaming, "Help, something's wrong with Stacy!" (her white, 3 1/2 year old, leghorn). I went out with her and discovered what appeared to be a prolapsed uterus.
**GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION**
There was, what I assumed was, her uterus hanging out the vent with a little blood, and a lot of poo all down her bum.
This was the first night of our hard freezes so we gathered her up and brought her into the garage. We rinsed and rinsed and tried to clean her up as best we could including triming feathers that were matted together in poo.
My thought was she laid a thin or shell-less egg because her feathers appeared to be stuck like glue. We took prep-H and smeared it everywhere and tucked everything back inside her, then we put her in a kennel in a heated side room.
Up until yesterday she's been eating well. Yesterday I gave her a 20 minute spa treatment in a warm bath with a light massage and re-tucked her uterus. (We'd been re-tucking twice a day since the original incident, but not last night - Saturday - or this morning.) Everything has stayed inside for 24 hours now, but, like I said, she's lost her appetite. She is still drinking. She's on a low-heat, hot pad in the kennel still. We never found any evidence of an egg being inside her, but her bum is red and swollen.
I guess my questions are:
1) could she be egg bound?
2) how can we help her if she is?
3) is the situation hopeless?
4) can you give a chicken a hysterectomy? I mean I could care less if she ever lays another egg. I just want her to be back to her sassy self.
4) honestly, what should we do?
PLEASE I beg of you be kind. We love our chickens and WON'T eat them so please don't suggest such blasphemy. I just want to make her better/happy/back to normal.
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