Soft Shelled Egg in Abdomen but still Laying?

[coach723]

I'm not real good with ultrasound or xray images unless it's really obvious.
It sounds like you have a competent and experienced vet with birds (some people don't), so that's a very good thing. You will just need to weigh all the information and make a decision that's best for you. Ascites is a whole different thing, once they develop that then palliative care is really all you can do. Some birds live for a fair amount of time with it, and some pass quickly, it just depends on what the actual underlying condition is. I've lost a fair amount with ascites, they usually have cancer or a reproductive infection which doesn't respond to treatment. Good luck with your girls.

 

[WendyTestaburger]

I'm not real good with ultrasound or xray images unless it's really obvious.
It sounds like you have a competent and experienced vet with birds (some people don't), so that's a very good thing. You will just need to weigh all the information and make a decision that's best for you. Ascites is a whole different thing, once they develop that then palliative care is really all you can do. Some birds live for a fair amount of time with it, and some pass quickly, it just depends on what the actual underlying condition is. I've lost a fair amount with ascites, they usually have cancer or a reproductive infection which doesn't respond to treatment. Good luck with your girls.

Thank you for your reply, I'm sorry about your loses. I'm thinking if it is the fluid building up again this quickly then it might be time to let our water belly girl go and move forward with the implant for Jazz but I will ask the vet. They have several vets at this practice and I seem to be getting different info from each so trying to process it all.

 

[azygous]

Do you see the crop in this diagram? It's a light grey color. Follow it to the proventriculus, then to the gizzard, all light grey in color. Some respondents guessed it might be the gizzard you're feeling. Can you locate on this diagram where you feel the egg bulge in her abdomen?

 

[WendyTestaburger]

View attachment 3748594Do you see the crop in this diagram? It's a light grey color. Follow it to the proventriculus, then to the gizzard, all light grey in color. Some respondents guessed it might be the gizzard you're feeling. Can you locate on this diagram where you feel the egg bulge in her abdomen?

Thanks for the diagram! I'm saving that to my phone right now.


The bulge is right where the small intestines are in that photo, it's the exact same placement as the fluid bulge was for my girl with water belly, which is why I assumed that's what this was for Jazz. The vet had mentioned that the closest organs were the liver and I believe kidney but that doesnt make sense based on the diagram so maybe I'm not remembering correctly. She only mentioned it because I asked if it could be a cyst or something else.

 

[coach723]

The diagram makes everything look very spacious and neat and perfect, in reality everything is right next to everything else, there isn't really any extra space in there, so one thing is right next to another, which can make it harder to distinguish different parts in images. Some things show up better on ultrasound, some things show up better on xray, etc. and angles matter too, an image from a bird laying on it's back may show something better, or worse, than an image from the side, depending on what you are looking at.

 

[WendyTestaburger]

We went in yesterday and had an xray and ultrasound done to confirm it was an internally laid egg. The vet did a wonderful job and was able to explain to me what she was seeing.

Unfortunately our girl Chill with water belly had scarring from the fluid so we had to say goodbye since her prognosis was so poor. It was very peaceful for her so I'm grateful for that. But thanks to Chill we caught Jazz early on enough that we could buy her time with the implant so we went that route and plan to take it one step at a time since they are expensive and don't last long, 3-5 months is what this vet said.

Thank you for your responses. It's scary to think I would have assumed Jazz was perfectly healthy since her behavior is normal, she was laying eggs, molted and bounced back fine, definitely makes me wonder if any of our other 10 have anything brewing I don't know about.

 

[coach723]

I'm very sorry for your loss.
Glad they made everything clearer for you and you were able to help Jazz. Hopefully she can live a good long time now.
Chickens are very, very good at hiding illness, it's really easy to miss things until they are pretty advanced, so don't beat yourself up about that.