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- #41
An update on my hen but first a little background. Initially I thought she had coccidiosis so I started treating her with Amprolium. I gave her a bath to clean her up and she immediately started straining and squatting as if trying to lay an egg. So then I assumed she was egg bound and started giving her epsom salt baths. When she first became ill she layed one last egg that was more of a fluid filled sack so initially I didn't suspect she was egg bound. However after 3 days I suspected it was vent gleet because she fit all the symptoms and, well, she was still alive. Then the maggots.
I gave her one last bath last night and there was no sign of maggots. I sprayed her vent with Vetericyn since this was recommended treatment for fly strike. I sprayed her again in the morning, cleaned her up without a full on bath, and put up a fly trap to help control the flies. I had the horse fly spray in my hand and decided against it because I worried it might be hard on her weakened immune system and I couldn't spray it on her vent anyway, only her back. I have her in my garage and once it started cooling down tonight I shut the garage and opened a window and all the flies swarmed onto the open window's screen. So tomorrow I'm going to keep the door shut and keep and eye on the temperature and hopefully the flies will continue to leave her be.
This afternoon I gave her another epsom salt bath and afterwards irrigated her vent with a saline solution to be sure there were no more maggots and a bunch of hard-ish white-ish clumps came out. I now think she was either egg bound and the egg broke inside her or it broke as she tried to lay it. I have no other explanation for these clumps. I realize this is not a great situation especially since there are some clumps still in her that I didn't want to tear out because I know that's also bad. I did pull a view bits out that were loosely clinging on and I felt bad enough about that but it felt like they needed to go.
I'm going to give her another day of a bath and irrigation to see if any more will come out. Her vent looks so much better with all the white glops gone but she's still oozing some white goop.
Obviously if there's no improvement in the next day or so I'll have to euthanize her. She's already low bird in the flock, it's going to be a challenge to reintroduce her even if she recovers. I'm not terribly optimistic but I'm going to give her another day or two to see if she makes any progress. I'll post photos below of the white bits and the stuff still inside her.
I gave her one last bath last night and there was no sign of maggots. I sprayed her vent with Vetericyn since this was recommended treatment for fly strike. I sprayed her again in the morning, cleaned her up without a full on bath, and put up a fly trap to help control the flies. I had the horse fly spray in my hand and decided against it because I worried it might be hard on her weakened immune system and I couldn't spray it on her vent anyway, only her back. I have her in my garage and once it started cooling down tonight I shut the garage and opened a window and all the flies swarmed onto the open window's screen. So tomorrow I'm going to keep the door shut and keep and eye on the temperature and hopefully the flies will continue to leave her be.
This afternoon I gave her another epsom salt bath and afterwards irrigated her vent with a saline solution to be sure there were no more maggots and a bunch of hard-ish white-ish clumps came out. I now think she was either egg bound and the egg broke inside her or it broke as she tried to lay it. I have no other explanation for these clumps. I realize this is not a great situation especially since there are some clumps still in her that I didn't want to tear out because I know that's also bad. I did pull a view bits out that were loosely clinging on and I felt bad enough about that but it felt like they needed to go.
I'm going to give her another day of a bath and irrigation to see if any more will come out. Her vent looks so much better with all the white glops gone but she's still oozing some white goop.
Obviously if there's no improvement in the next day or so I'll have to euthanize her. She's already low bird in the flock, it's going to be a challenge to reintroduce her even if she recovers. I'm not terribly optimistic but I'm going to give her another day or two to see if she makes any progress. I'll post photos below of the white bits and the stuff still inside her.
