Swollen Adomen on Hen

[sillychickens13]

My chicken has a bloated adomen. She walks pretty well and she eats and drinks. She has not laid an egg in at least 2 weeks. She can run and fly still. She stands up straight and her chest is weird because you can feel her ribcage. Otherwise she is ok. Please leave a comment if you know what's wrong with her. She is also a New Hampshire Red. I recently had a different chicken that had symptons like this and died. The other hen was also a New Hampshire Red. I want to prevent her from getting worse. Maybe even treat what ever she has if I can. Thanks This is a little video of her. This is alo a pic of her 2 weeks ago when I gave her a hot steam thing.This is Big Red.
This is the other chicken who was in much worse condition and I gave her the hot steam bath thing to. This is Red.

 

[klmclain1]

There have been discussions about this kind of issue - do a search for some key words like "drain" "abdomen" and "fluid". See if it's the same type of situation. You may have to get a syringe and drain the fluid out. Good luck!

 

[Ksane]

It's quite possibly what they call "internal laying". The egg deposits itself in the abdominal cavity. The prognosis is poor. Please do a search and see if that sounds like what she has.

 

[Ksane]

Double post, weird.

 

[Ema]

fill out the emergency questionaire in emergencies and diseases section, add pics and take it from there, you don't know what really is wrong with them as of yet. list what you are feeding them etc... and then we can start helping you figure this out. it might be egg bound, could be worms, or something they ate, many things, but the questions are there to help narrow it down. I am gonna watch the video right now.

Ema

 

[Ema]

I would start by giving some olive oil to both....

 

[sillychickens13]

HI Ema the lighter chicken (Big Red) is the alive one the darker one (Red) died sadly, but she was in much worse shape. I feed my chickens nature wise layer crumbles and nature wise cracked corn. I feed them bread, cracked oyster shells, fruits, and sometimes yogurt. I'll fill out the questonaire right now.

 

[Ema]

I am sorry about you losing your hen, in the future, and I know this can be one of those things most people do not want to do, but you should learn to process a bird if only for the science of knowing what really was going on inside her. As a said this is not something most people would want to do, but sometimes it can be necessary to we can learn to fix the issue if there is a possibility f it, so another hen does not die of the same thing.

 

[fiberart57]

If it's any consolation, there's probably not much you could have done. I recently lost my New Hampshire Red (hatchery) to a similar situation - swollen abdomen but was eating and running around. However, she rapidly went downhill and I ended things for her before it got too bad.

Yes, you can drain the fluid from their abdomens if you are capable but, with everything I've read, all it does is prolong the inevitable - which is there's no cure and she was going to die. I chose to send her on her way before she started suffering too badly. She was at a point where she would still eat and come to me for treats but didn't seem able to lay down because of the fluid build up.

Mary

 

[sillychickens13]

Hi Mary, the chicken that is still alive(Big Red) she is still doing everything she used to, but not as happily. She hasn't gone downhill as fast as Red did( the one that died). I have read that someones chicken has this problem and is still alive after 3 years. I'm wondering if she has pertinitis. I heard there are two kinds of pertinitis sterile and septic. I belive red has septic, because she went down hill fast. I think that Big Red has the sterile one because she can still fly and do almost everything a healthy bird does. Do you know how to prevent this because this happened a month or so after Red died. I hope it won't go threw the flock.