Sick hen with foamy yellow poop. Help! Update: Diagnosed with egg yolk peritonitis

[Hanna8]

For several weeks, my naked neck hen has been acting strangely. She would take any chance she could to sneak into our house. We didn't think too much of it, since she loves people and has been brought inside many times before, but she is also our lead hen and it is strange that she would ditch her flock like that.

This past Friday (four days ago) it suddenly became very clear that she was sick. She was more insistent that she stay inside, had very little energy, hardly any appetite, a hunched posture, and poofed up feathers. She will drink a bit of her own accord, but all we have been able to get her to eat is a few leaves of spinach (her favorite food ever). She also began pooping a foamy yellow, liquid-y mess. Here's a poop from Sunday, and one from today:


Gross, right? She does seem to perk up a little bit after these poops.

At first we thought it was coccidia, but she has not responded to the corid treatment. Last night she became feverish and seemed weaker and a bit off balance, so we switched to antibiotics. She's back to a normal temperature today, but is showing no other signs of improvement. Can we give corid and antibiotics at the same time? Is coccidia even the problem?

Another possibility we have looked at is egg peritonitis. She lays shell-less eggs, so it seems very possible. Thoughts?

What do you think is wrong with her and how should we go about treating it? Thanks!

 

[Hanna8]

Hi everybody, sorry for completely vanishing for so long. I swore I wouldn't after reading so many other threads that ended on cliffhangers like this, and never intended to wait so long to update. I'm afraid it's because things went in a way that makes them very tough to write about. I decided to wait a short while before posting but the longer I put it off, the easier it became to continue putting it off. But it's been a long time now and it is well past time to return and give some closure. For myself as much as for others who might read this.

Gerdie went downhill fast a day or two after my last post. We got her to an avian vet first thing in the morning. She was rushed to the back immediately and the vet was in the room within a minute. We began explaining her predicament and the vet picked her up to examine her. He said it felt like she was trying to pass another mass then began expressing his concern that her situation did not look good. At that point, she stopped breathing and was gone.

I am so thankful that she got a few days of happiness and feeling well before she left us. We got to have her for far longer than we probably should have. That hen had nine lives. She walked home half dead after being missing for hours twice. The second time, she collapsed next to my mom and then couldn't walk for over a month because her wounds were so bad. She became a house chicken for a while and seemed not to mind her injuries that much. She was just delighted by the constant attention and hand-fed spinach that they earned her. She was a very loved bird and we have yet to have one who's captured our hearts half as much.

My advice to anybody reading this who has a hen in a similar predicament is to get your hands on some Baytril ASAP, take no more than a day or two to research your options (spay, hormone implants, continued use of Baytril), and start acting as soon as you can. This is not something to be messed with, especially if there is infection involved. And if you only suspect that a hen has it, don't wait for it to progress to confirm it. Take her to a vet and share your concerns. I don't want any of you to make the same mistakes I did and hold off for too long. I don't know if I will ever forgive myself for that.

I haven't been in research frenzy mode about this since we had Gerdie, so I'm not sure what advancements, if any, have been made in understanding and treating peritonitis. I'd share the notes I collected a while ago, but I don't want to supply anybody with outdated information. It was all fairly general stuff I got by googling the names of the medications anyway. I believe for the hormone implant, it helped to not look specifically for use in chickens. I found that it was used in other kinds of birds for similar issues and in a variety of mammals and got a lot more information on it's general effects that way. Chicken-specific info is always best, there wasn't much out there at the time. I hope that chicken medicine advances over the years so we don't have to go through so much trouble over things like this.

If you guys have any questions, feel free to ask. I might be a little fuzzy on details since this was a while ago now, but I will do my best to answer them and others are likely to chime in.

 

[Hanna8]

Bump- I feel like she's running out of time. ANY thoughts are greatly appreciated!!!

 

[gander007]

If she will eat give her a mashed up hard boiled egg and
see if she will eat it ....

Also you need to get some Probiotic and add it to the
chickens water because if one has it they all have it ..

 

[Hanna8]

Thanks, I'll do that. No signs of anything off in the other birds yet, hopefully it will stay that way. What do you think it might be? The symptoms seem to match everything and nothing all at once. Diagnosing chickens is tough.

 

[Hanna8]

I was able to get her to eat a little bit of the egg last night. She seems about the same this morning.

 

[gander007]

I was able to get her to eat a little bit of the egg last night. She seems about the same this morning.

So she is not getting worse that is a good sign just keep up the good work ....

 

[Hanna8]

All she will eat now is egg that's been soaked in her water and made soggy. She's still drinking a reasonable amount, but is definitely not eating enough and still has very little energy. She has also been making clicking noises, which I have read is a sign of respiratory disease, so I'm wondering now if that could be the problem. Antibiotics take care of most of those, right?

 

[gander007]

All she will eat now is egg that's been soaked in her water and made soggy. She's still drinking a reasonable amount, but is definitely not eating enough and still has very little energy. She has also been making clicking noises, which I have read is a sign of respiratory disease, so I'm wondering now if that could be the problem. Antibiotics take care of most of those, right?

Antibiotics is that the probiotic you add to the water as that is a light biotic and in medicine
form Antibiotic is a bit harder on the digestive track and that will cause a slowing in eating
and that is normal .....

Egg in water sounds alright but I would change the water a couple times a day as egg's
do go bad fast .....


How is the energy level ???

 

[Hanna8]

We're giving her antibiotic medicine in her water. Glad to hear that it could be part of her loss of appetite. What is the probiotic you mentioned? Is it something I would be likely to find at a local feed and seed?

No worries, we've been changing out the water very frequently. The last thing we need is for it to end up making her sicker! I just wish she would eat more of it and some other things as well...

Her energy level is ever so slightly improved. She stood up to drink her water a few times today, but other than that she still spends the vast majority of her time sleeping and lying down. Rest is good, but it does worry me that she is so inactive.