SOS VENT PROLAPSE

[EggSighted4Life]

one to an injured leg (I believe it was dislocated and just wouldn't go back even doing "chicken rehab" for a month).

Very sorry for your losses.

We all do our best.

Sorry for asking about the injured leg... but since I am here to support you and your flock, I must. Did the bird respond like it was in pain? Was there any swelling or heat in the leg? What was the birds age? Was the leg dangling or seem attached well but uncontrolled movements? My concern is Marek's. I dislocated my elbow and it was excruciating. My arm hung there and looked very elongated. Anyways, I don't mean to cause any extra alarm for you! Just a discussion.

Glad you have hubby to help support you and make the tough decisions.

Sorry, I'm also the one who asks if you want to share a pic from her happier days... in honor of her memory?

 

[lmw411]

Very sorry for your losses.

We all do our best.

Sorry for asking about the injured leg... but since I am here to support you and your flock, I must. Did the bird respond like it was in pain? Was there any swelling or heat in the leg? What was the birds age? Was the leg dangling or seem attached well but uncontrolled movements? My concern is Marek's. I dislocated my elbow and it was excruciating. My arm hung there and looked very elongated. Anyways, I don't mean to cause any extra alarm for you! Just a discussion.

Glad you have hubby to help support you and make the tough decisions.

Sorry, I'm also the one who asks if you want to share a pic from her happier days... in honor of her memory?

For our chicken with the leg problem no, there was no response to pain. We found her after we came home from being gone for two days. She somehow pinned her way between two pallets and had been there for at least a day and some change in freezing temps. Her comb was blue, she had shallow breath. We were hopeful for her, but the leg remained completely cold. I made a sling for her and we did range of motion 3x a day, and i tried strengthening but the leg was just dead(thank goodness this occurred when I was able to be home all day). The toes remained curled, and she never bore weight threw it. The other leg recover recovered great and she could use it perfectly. She was back to her normal self, except a bum leg. After she passed we got a better look at it and it was pretty dislocated at the "hip" or whatever it would be called for chickens. I was worried about Marek's too but I'm pretty confident it was not Mareks.

Here is Ida, the one we just lost. This is a pic of her several months ago so she is very young in it. Her comb ended up growing wonky and a lot bigger so she was one funny looking chicken. She laid a pretty green/blue egg and I loved the puff on her head. I unfortunately don't have many pics of her at all. By far the smartest chicken we had and was super clever.

 

[cottagecheese]

OMG what a mess! I went back and read my messages and indeed, there is an assertiveness and an urgency of which I was completely unaware. WHOA look at my first message: 'i am a veteran of four prolapse battles to save my hen (I won). I read many, many threads on many forums and websites and comments on youtube ' [shaking my head] The thread was similar to a room in which people were sitting having a normal conversation, and I just burst in yelling and gesticulating wildly.

You see, OP, something had happened very recently and it looks like it had upset me more than I was aware of. A girl who loved her turkey very much, but she just wouldn't tune in, we spoke briefly and she just drifted away... and it is possible I could've helped... and it all ended in a very disturbing way. When I clicked on this thread you were in the middle of buying Prep H and I absolutely panicked, because I had read about so many hens who died like that, I really had to stop you and to grab your attention. Ugh, I failed because I tried too hard. Poop indeed happens.

I'm really sorry I didn't have this when maybe it would've made a difference for Ida. But hopefully it'll save other hens in the future.

Bridget the hen has been plagued by serial prolapses, on average every two months. Her fourth one happened one Thursday afternoon and I applied unrefined coconut oil, which had cured the first three. But I had a bad feeling because a good portion was hanging out, almost halfway to the floor. She was straining every ten, fifteen minutes trying but not being able to poop. Friday, almost 24 hrs later, surprisingly there was absolutely no improvement, the coconut oil had done nothing this time. Bridget is very strong for a chicken and I was holding her gently as I was looking at her, so when she decided to take me by surprise and jump out of my arms I couldn't catch her. She landed hurting her prolapse and started to bleed. I was feeling like crap so decided to go for a walk. Not far from home, the branch of a tree came into my line of vision. It still had a few dry leaves clinging to it in the dead of winter. Going back a little bit, all these close calls with the prolapses had motivated me to play a little with google, so this is how I was aware of a little something (maybe cockatiel) who had been treated with white oak bark powder and had recovered. Being prejudiced against herbal remedies I discarded the idea. This tree though...was for sure an oak, because oaks are the only ones that still keep a few leaves on until spring. It also had a whitish, light grey bark, while the other trees had dark grey barks. So this was actually a white oak. Right, this is worth a try, so I went back home and returned with a knife and cut a little piece, not too much because trees can get sick really easily. Did a new search, this time about how the bark should be prepared. Gentle heating concentrates healing volatile oils in the bark but destroys the volatile oils once the bark has been powdered. Very well then. With the stove on medium low I held the bark in my hand above the burner, thinking that if my fingers can tolerate it, then it's gentle enough. I made sure that the bark is exposed to the heat on both sides, and... the kitchen filled with an unbelievable aroma, spicy and very pleasant. I broke the bark into coffee bean sized pieces and cleaned the coffee grinder really well with a slightly dampened paper towel, making sure that no traces of coffee remain. Ground up the bark as finely as possible, melted some coconut oil in a big spoon and waited for it to cool to body temperature, because, remember, the powder should not be heated. Made a slurry, with as high a proportion of powder as possible combined with enough coconut oil to keep it fluid. Because, unlike the first three times when it had cured, this time the coconut oil had dropped the ball and was demoted to second violin. This time I had a helper holding Bridget securely and I started to gently dab the (body temperature) concoction on her prolapse. A very good sign: she stopped
struggling immediately and the stuff stuck to her well. This was a grotesque prolapse, practically everything was hanging out, except for intestines and I gently dabbed the stuff making sure to cover very well the prolapse and the skin around it. See you in the morning, Bridget. Saturday morning, a very beautiful sight greeted me: two enormous, egg-sized poos. The poor thing was finally able to evacuate, after 36 hrs. Half of the prolapse was back in and the color was lighter, not as angry as before. Two more applications of the slurry on Sat morning and Sat evening and poops all day long some of them egg-sized. Sunday morning (very fitting) the prolapse was gone. I kept her in the darkness except for six hrs daily, for a few days to stop the laying so her body could take a break.
Something remarkable - for weeks and weeks after, my coffee retained a pleasant undertone of oak. Very powerful, those volatile oils.
So why did it work? From what I could gather, because of tannin and quercin, very good astringents. (An astringent is a substance which causes biological tissue to contract .) The bark is also antiseptic, there was no infection. All oaks are medicinal and their bark contains tannins and I have a suspicion that in an emergency any oak will help, if a white oak can't be found. But it's probably important to get it fresh off the tree.