Rooster is bleeding from vent and I think his intestines are out

[homeschoolchick]

Okay. Thank you. I don't have any antibiotics on hand.

 

[Debbie292d]

Okay. Thank you. I don't have any antibiotics on hand.

Amoxicillin can be purchased at aquarium fish pet stores in the form of aquarium treatment. It's called AquaMox or Fish Mox or maybe even other names. Dosage would be 250mg twice a day for a week to 10 days. I don't want to encourage you though if this is futile.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I highly recommend putting him down also.

 

[homeschoolchick]

What is the most humane way? I have never had to do this. I am agonizing over the decision.

 

[azygous]

A chickens' innards are not stuffed into the abdominal cavity like so much spaghetti. It's complex plumbing, each section having a position that enables its function, and you would never hope to get it all back in the positions they need to be. I see one portion that is likely one of the two cecum. Those reside nowhere near the vent opening and are responsible for distributing fluids throughout the body besides forming cecal poop.

Even if you managed to somehow get all that back inside, he would then need to be put on a continual antibiotic intravenous drip to combat infection which has already begun. You are not equipped to do this.

The most humane method is cervical dislocation.

 

[azygous]

This will show you how to do it. https://the-chicken-chick.com/5-ways-to-prepare-for-chicken-illness/

 

[homeschoolchick]

Okay. Thank you very much for your help. It sounds like you are very knowledgeable.
Do you have any thoughts on how this could have happened?

 

[azygous]

If he has been behaving normally, it may have begun with one of the pullets pecking curiously at his vent. If it began to bleed, then all of the pullets would have been attracted to the injury. More pecking, more damage, more bleeding, and in the feeding frenzy, the chickens would pull on the tissue.

Chickens are cannibals. My uncle had a large commercial chicken farm in California when I was a young child. If he didn't regularly remove injured chickens from the thousands of birds, this is what would end up happening. Unfortunately, with the size of his operation, it often did.

 

[homeschoolchick]

He was behaving normally. But, there was bleeding, so maybe what you said. But there wasn't intestine out when they were put to bed. It was there when I went back to check on him. They were asleep on the roost at this point.

 

[azygous]

Usually this happens with hens when they have an egg stuck and they are straining to expel it. When it happens to a rooster, which is much more rare, he may be constipated or have a blockage, and the vent prolapses along with intestines the more he strains.

If you have the means, you can refrigerate his remains, try to locate an animal testing lab in your area, and have them do a necropsy on him to determine if he had something abnormal going on.