Question about distended bellies/ egg yolk peritonitis/ ascites

[roz]

So I started searching everywhere on BYC for distended abdomens when I notice we had a problem with it. A lot of what I found talked about egg yolk peritonitis and ascites. My question is, what are the odds that all 10 out of 10 hens have egg yolk peritonitis or ascites? I cant imagine that it would be the cause of every one of my girls' belly issues, but could I be wrong? The bellies were first noticed when I discovered lice, we treated them, lice went away, but distended abdomens stayed. We lost one who had laid 3 soft shell eggs in 3 days, another got sick after getting an egg shell stuck inside after laying a shelless egg, and in caring for her we discovered she had worms when she expelled the shell along with a load of roundworms followed by a rubber egg. We wormed them with piperazine a week ago today, was loading them up on acv, molasses, and some herbal concoctions and probiotics I'd read about a while back. We got our verm-x today so now I am treating them with an herbal broad spectrum wormer. A couple of days ago I sprayed the entire coop with a lice/mite spray just in case mites could be the culprit, and I will be scrubbing and possibly spraying again tomorrow, but could mites cause the belly issue? I'm just really confused. Everytime I fix something I think it's going to alleviate the belly problem but it doesnt. Are my girls destined to live the rest of their lives with inflated bellies? Out of the 9 we have, 7 of them are about a year old, 1 is about 1.5 years old, and the last is about 3.5 years old.

 

[Judy]

I agree it seems pretty unlikely that all of them should be internal layers or something similar, especially not at the same time, and I don't know what it is, but i do have a link that i think covers most diseases chickens can get. Maybe you can find something in it. Good luck.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044

And a couple on internal laying:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=79443&p=1

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=362422

 

[roz]

Thanks for the links! After looking over everything, the there are a couple of diseases that might be possible, but nothing seems to stand out as an "aha". I dont want to over medicate them, but I'm wondering if it is egg drop syndrome or gut rut (although we do not have a crowded flock, and I dont think they have unsanitary conditions) as well as one other disease, I think I remember antibiotics working. That is the only thing left to try. Could mites be causing all my problems with swollen abdomens? Every night when I got lock up my flock, I quickly shine a flashlight onto the walls and dont see any, so I'm guessing it isnt a problem, but I'm willing to consider anything at this point.