Swollen behind, no other symptoms?

[Tailwise]

I would, but at this point it's no longer visible. It was a general feeling of fat, squishy 'roundness' around her behind, overlapping part of her I-know-it's-not-called-a-breastbone-but-I-keep-calling-it-that. And her being a weirdo Frankenstein cross makes things complicated - I wound up having to cop a feel of our Wyandotte hen's behind (wide, but so much so that you can't find any meat or organs under there, it's so soft), our other Silkie-Wyandotte cross (too broody to be much good in the comparison department, she's getting thin) and the bird's mother (too slim but a tangible mass of body under there, like she has) to make any kind of educated guess about how it 'should' feel like.

And now I feel like a filthy chicken groper.

 

[Tailwise]

Quickie update as I wait for the chicken to get an ultrasound: the expert has found a mass in there. Says it's not hard and probably something ovarian, like an inflammation. She's going in for that ultrasound in 30 mins.

 

[Tailwise]

Oh, poor Bintje. After all that: nights of sleeping in stretches of two hours at a time as I kept trying new treats to get her to eat or attempted to get her to poop, after having the local vet throw her on her back and jab her over and over in the stomach, after forcing me to call in sick to work because of all the sleep lost worrying over her, after being poked and prodded all over AGAIN by a bunch of overeager veterinary residents, having an avian expert jab her in the cloaca, having weird gunk slathered all over her nethers... after all that...

... she receives the final indignity of having an avian vet tell her that her ass is fat.

Apparently the fat is threaded through her butt/abdomen, to the point where there's a bit of it between her ovaries and her intestines - which is why the vet and the specialist both thought it was an ovarian problem at first. But nope. Just fat.

The specialist told me that her lack of appetite right now is a blessing in disguise and I should probably stop giving her treats to make up for it. Let her lose a little weight. He also thinks she stopped laying because she got this overweight and it's the combination of the fat and the molting that's making her grumpy lately. As long as she doesn't get lethargic (in which case he'd want to have bloodwork done) she's free and clear.

If, erm, about to go on a diet.

(I am deeply grateful to the folks at our avian hospital, who refused to give me the kind of scary maybe-diagnoses my vet did, but instead immediately leaped into action and got an ultrasound scheduled just an hour after they found the mass during check-up.)

(And apologies if I get a little too wordy, but I like to use this forum myself to use other people's experiences to diagnose my own chickens, so I figured I'd be as clear as possible in case it's any use to anyone.)

 

[Tailwise]

For posterity, here's some pictures of the butt. It was firm, but not hard, and slightly squishy; it felt a little like she had this weird, rounded, solid chunk of padding all around.

 

[Nambroth]

Oh goodness! After all that! I'm so glad it was not peritonitis / cancer, or something like that!! Poor girl, but I'm happy for her that of all the problems chickens are prone to, this one is not so bad.

 

[Tailwise]

Yeah, after they said they needed an ultrasound of the 'unidentified mass' in her belly, I was mentally saying goodbye to a good chunk of my savings and peace of mind! I wound up crying in the waiting room.

Only to get drawn into a room by serious-faced professionals and told my chicken just put herself on a badly needed diet... ha.

 

[Nambroth]

I understand! I've had to put two through ultrasounds (not terrible for the chicken, just cold and slimy if my own experience is anything to go by). They were less expensive than the xrays, but both revealed things that we sure didn't want revealed (cancer and peritonitis).

 

[Tailwise]

Oh god, I'm so sorry about your birds! I was absolutely terrified of getting that diagnosis - most other problems in that area are ones the avian experts nearby at least have some idea of how to treat effectively, but cancer?

I raised this one from the egg - her mom attacked her egg while it was hatching and permanently damaged her wing in the process. She taught me how to see chickens as thinking, social creatures in about a million ways. Losing her would've been absolutely devastating.