Terrible prolapse, need help.

[kjordanR]

Friday night, 1/11/18, went out to the flock to collect eggs and noticed that one of our birds had poop all down her backside. Upon inspection saw that she had a pretty terrible prolapse and it appeared backed up with poop. I thought it was an impaction so I tried to remove what poop i could. We brought her inside to the basement, where she is in a dog crate. We have soaked her several times and tried to clean off the dried poop. The white part of the poop is really hard to get off. We tried to gently push the prolapse back in but she keeps pushing it out. Later that first night she made terrible noises and laid an egg. Poor girl, it must have hurt so bad. I should add that it looks like our other hens had been pecking at it because it looks like it is wounded on the side.

Past 2 days we have irrigated the prolapse, soaked in epsom, sprayed with vetericyn, and apply preparation H (approx 2/day). We have also been giving her vitamins in her water. Honestly, I have little hope that what we are doing is helping; a large area of the prolapse is black with a hardened lump and she makes a distressed call every time she pushes poo out. She's still eating drinking, and pooping.

Any advice would be appreciated. We are prepared to cull her if necessary, but want to try to save her if we can.

 

[Eggcessive]

The dark necrotic material and tissue needs to be removed or debrided. The best way is to soak her in shallow warm soapy or Epsom salts water for 20 minutes, keeping the water warm. When the tissue has softened after about 10 minutes, take a wash cloth and try to scrub off the blackened tissue. There may even be some strange goopy grey material on there that needs to come off. There will be a little healthy bleeding, but that means there is healthy tissue underneath.

Always keep the tissue moist with something—honey, oil, plain neosporin, hydrocortisone cream, or hemorrhoid cream to keep the prolapse from drying out which causes the black skin. To stop her from laying more eggs, she needs to be in the dark for 16 of every 24 hours for a few day. You can reduce the protein or amount of her feed by 1/3 to help stop laying. Let her out in the daytime to eat and drink and to do your treatments. This will take a few days.

Once all the dark tissue comes off is when you can try to start pushing the red tissue back inside and holding it there for a few minutes. Usually it will pop back out, but continue to push it back whenever possible.

 

[Eggcessive]

Here is some good info on prolapses:
https://the-chicken-chick.com/prolapse-vent-causes-treatment-graphic/

 

[kjordanR]

I have some dermoblast pain spray left over from my postpartum recovery. Should I spray that on the area before attempting to debride? Also, what is a good tool for that? razor blade? scizzors?

 

[Eggcessive]

No, I didn’t mean for you to cut anything off—just wash it off with the cloth to get the dead skin off after a soak. I was just saying that it would or could bleed a little, and that is good.

Also, do not use any pain spray. Pain killers such as benzocaine and other caines can be toxic in chickens, and should be avoided for the most part.