Water belly or internal laying or cysts?

[JacksonPearce]

I have a chicken I *thought* had water belly; her belly was swollen and featherless, and she hadn't laid in ages. I tried to drain it using a large gauge needle, but felt like I was having to stick her too many times to get fluid— so today I opted to use a (clean! sanitized!) scalpel to make a small X to drain faster and without so many pokes. To my surprise, a lot of solid content came along— what looks to my untrained eye like broken down cyst content. MORE to my surprise…these large pieces showed up.

I did tug lightly to get these out, and am living in fear that I’ve done more harm than good— but this pretty clearly looks like soft shelled eggs, and matched the smaller pieces that were flowing out freely. After quite a lot of massaging and moving and time, her belly is drained and looks good now..but was this internal laying, not water belly? Looking at chicken anatomy, it seems odd I’d find egg-anything in the space I cut to alleviate water belly, but here we are!

She seems much happier and more comfortable now in my laundry room, and I went ahead and started her on some antibiotics in case of infection. I'd have taken her to the vet, but vets in our state aren't seeing chickens due to avian flu, so it's just me and my arsenal of pet meds!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

If you got the soft shelled membranes from an incision in the abdomen, I would take a good guess this is from Internal Laying, solid content may have been egg material, fat...hard to know.
Hopefully the antibiotics will help with any infection from the incision and you won't have any issues.
Sadly, a hen that has material like this in the abdomen may do ok for a while, only to decline once again as that builds back up.

Do you have photos of the solid content that came out as well?

 

[JacksonPearce]

If you got the soft shelled membranes from an incision in the abdomen, I would take a good guess this is from Internal Laying, solid content may have been egg material, fat...hard to know.
Hopefully the antibiotics will help with any infection from the incision and you won't have any issues.
Sadly, a hen that has material like this in the abdomen may do ok for a while, only to decline once again as that builds back up.

Do you have photos of the solid content that came out as well?

I don’t, but it was very small and very similar to those soft shell bits. It very much seemed like egg material. I don’t totally understand how egg material would be in that area, though— aren’t the oviduct and all on the upper side?

I figured that treating the (what I thought was) water belly I was only delaying the inevitable, and I suppose it’s the same with this— but at least she’s more comfortable now! She’s happily eating like I didn’t just do impromptu surgery on the washing machine.

 

[cherrynberry]

@Wyorp Rock @Eggcessive

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Well, you made an incision into the abdomen, so hopefully infection won't set in.

As for how the eggs or material gets into the abdomen (Coelomic Cavity)...the reproductive system is not a closed system. The Ovum (Egg Yolks) are in a cluster, the Infundibulum which is the upper most part of the oviduct moves like a muscle to surround the Ovum which is released. An Ovum can drop into the abdomen, released too early, it can reverse through muscle contractions once released...there's different scenarios, but the bottom line, is the ovum (egg yolk), a whole egg, part of an egg, etc. can travel back up the oviduct and be dropped into the abdomen. Some folks have found whole eggs, hard shell and all in the abdomen. Bottom line is that material is not supposed to be there. Sometimes if it's a one time thing, the hen's body can reabsorb the material, but unfortunately a lot of times with whatever failure is going on, more material collects (as seen in your hen).
The body in turn, reacts to the foreign material in the abdomen. You may see fluid accumulate, the body might try to encase the material. It's not good news for the hen. Sometimes they can live with the material in there for quite a long time, but eventually they decline.

Please do keep us posted on how she gets along. I'd be interested to see.

Also what antibiotic and dose are you giving?

Here's more info on the reproductive system. The video is worth watching as well.

https://poultry.extension.org/articles/poultry-anatomy/avian-reproductive-female/

 

[Eggcessive]

Was the fluid that you had been draining yellow or amber colored? That definitely looks like egg membranes. I did a necropsy on my bantam hen last year who had ascites. After her 3rd time being drained, she died. The fluid became too thick to drain. She had about 7 small hollow egg membranes inside her belly. Sorry for your loss.

 

[JacksonPearce]

The fluid became too thick to drain.

The fluid was VERY thick and mostly a very solid, Crayola-crayon yellow. Some was lighter, but it was all more yellow than amber. There’s absolutely no way a needle would have worked! I would absolutely go straight to the incision next time, if I face the issue with another hen.

Also what antibiotic and dose are you giving?

I’m giving her SMZ powder in water— 1 tsp per two cups, which is about 2 tbs per gallon. I do have some other options if there’s a better choice!

I don’t want to keep having to cut and drain— that’s no quality of life— so we’ll see how this goes. She seems very content and happy, at the moment, and the incision site has pulled together and started to heal nicely. Fingers crossed!

 

[JacksonPearce]

Agreed, I won't be! I do think it looks a bit like she's filling back up with fluid again, unfortunately. It doesn't seem to bother her, so I'll just let her carry on and live her life until it looks like she's in pain/uncomfortable, then put her down.

 

[JacksonPearce]

Bump!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Personally, I would not cut any more. You are essentially opening the abdominal cavity, you risk infection by doing that.