Squishy crop, strange poop

[BelovedBirds]

My 21 week old brahma is acting oddly. She won't eat the snack I just offered and is sitting in a slightly hunched position near her water. She won't do her usual antics and at first I thought maybe she was about to lay her very first egg because her rear seemed to be contracting some.
However, still no egg but just pooped this odd poop. Her crop feels squishy to me. I haven't seen her eat.
Help!View attachment 3235722

I dont keep chickens, I keep ducks. But having read through this thread, I definitely wouldnt euthenize her. Not yet. Her posture looks good, and it sounds like she is doing okay for the most part. So I would keep an eye on her and wait and see, if she were mine.

Is she pooping? What do they look like?

 

[BelovedBirds]

I took her to the vet. They think it's likely a oviductal egg. They said unless a major improvement by morning, will likely need to euthanize tomorrow.

She's only 21 weeks. It's her first egg.

Are we certain on this diagnosis? What did they do to reach that conclusion, that it's an oviductal egg?

 

[Eggcessive]

So nice that azygous has helped you and that you have decided to help her at home instead of euthanize her. Good choice. Try offering some moistened chicken feed topped with a few pieces of scrambled egg. That may tempt her to eat.

 

[Ccort]

Here's what may have happened since her behavior is definitely not that of a hen with an obstruction in her oviduct. A yolk that enters the oviduct at ovulation can become lodged, not moving, remaining at the top of the oviduct and gathering layers of albumin (white). That was where she was when the vet saw her.

At some point in the last 24 hours, this hapless egg bounced out of the oviduct due to an oviduct malformation and spilled into the abdominal cavity, relieving her of the pain and discomfort she has been experiencing. This is what her perky behavior is telling us may have happened.

However, if this is what has happened, it has only bought her a little time before she faces the consequences of "internal laying". This is a condition where other ovum do the same thing, resulting in an accumulation of eggs in her abdominal cavity. At some point she will become very sick and death follows.

There is a very small chance this egg, if it isn't wrapped in too many layers of albumen, will absorb into her body, disappear in other words. We can't know, though, exactly what is actually happening, just the possibilities.

It's likely that your hen has a poorly developed oviduct to have all this happen. You should be prepared for all this to happen again, even though right now it appears she's over this crisis.

I suggest you return her to her normal routine with her flock as if none of this has happened and let her get back to normal life, as short as that prognosis may be.

What about the xray that showed the egg high up inside her? Also, she's not eating normally but minimally.

 

[Ccort]

Are we certain on this diagnosis? What did they do to reach that conclusion, that it's an oviductal egg?

They based it on symptoms and then an x-ray, which shows an egg quite far up in her.

 

[Ccort]

So nice that azygous has helped you and that you have decided to help her at home instead of euthanize her. Good choice. Try offering some moistened chicken feed topped with a few pieces of scrambled egg. That may tempt her to eat.

I actually tried that this morning but no interest in the scrambled egg. I thought I would try watermelon soon with the hope it gives her good fluid as well. Yesterday she would eat a seeds/nut mix so planning to do that as well as her normal grass eating.

 

[Ccort]

I dont keep chickens, I keep ducks. But having read through this thread, I definitely wouldnt euthenize her. Not yet. Her posture looks good, and it sounds like she is doing okay for the most part. So I would keep an eye on her and wait and see, if she were mine.

Is she pooping? What do they look like?

Thank you. I'm happy to see her perky but also still very concerned.
She's pooping, although not nearly as much as normal. It started out a slime green color and consistency mixed with scrambled egg yellow. This morning it was a runny brown.

 

[LovePBandJ]

Following along and hope for the best for your hen. My three girls are 20 weeks and haven’t started laying, yet.

 

[azygous]

This current theory of mine, and it's just an educated guess, fits with the x-ray of the yolk in the upper oviduct. When an oviduct is malformed, and science literature points to this problem occurring more frequently in poultry than in the past, the egg can't travel normally down the oviduct. Instead it backtracks and spills out of the top of the oviduct where it began. Picture the top of the oviduct as a funnel and when an egg is released by the ovary it is then "grabbed" by the top of the oviduct.

So when an egg finds it can't go down the oviduct, it gets bounced backward instead. I've had a couple of hens with this issue in the past years. When I open them up after death, their bellies are full of "hardboiled" eggs, cooked over months by their own body heat. As eggs accumulate in the belly, bacteria also grows, resulting in a chronic infection that eventually kills the hen.

 

[azygous]