Midwife for hens--on the graphic side.

I really do have a valid reason for not staying up to date with this blog.  I usually get inside by 9 pm, and by that point I am tired and ready for dinner, then couch time with G. 

Or then there are other times when I am still caring for animals right up until bedtime.  

I have had two hens in hospital cages in the basement pretty much ongoing for a while now.  The other night at 11 pm I added a third.  

Tiny Old English bantam 'Chatty Cathy' was breathing too hard earlier in the day with her tail pointed straight up.  Her belly was full, but I couldn't tell if she was trying to lay an enormous egg, or if she had ascites in there that was taking up space that her air sacs should have been (like what Granny Rose has)  So when I checked on her at bedtime she was even worse, and she got to come in the house so I could keep an eye on her. 

Well of course I slept poorly, dreaming about her and worrying we'd find her dead in the morning.  I got up early and found her exhausted, looking dehydrated (her comb was flopped over) and like she had been awake and standing all night.  I texted my vet friend before 7 am, and a little while later she texted back and said I could bring Cathy into the hospital.  

Cathy had an xray done, and sure enough it showed a big egg in there.  Cathy was so stressed and unable to breath correctly that she had to go into the special oxygen cage.  After a while we decided to quickly anesthetize her and see if we could reach the egg.  We couldn't.  It was still high up in the oviduct, not in the cloaca where we might reach it.  Sometimes in these cases you have to crush or deflate the egg in order to get it out. 

I decided to give her the day, and if she was not improving she would have to have surgery. She was open mouth breathing and heaving hard. Not very nice to see animals in distress like this. I took her home and it took over an hour for her to start to relax.  She was able to drink some water, which is good because if she didn't I would have had to give her fluids, and that is dangerous when they are already in respiratory distress.  Something like that can push them over the edge. 

She walked around a little bit, slowly. after another hour her demeanor changed, and I think that must have been when the egg passed down lower.  I had errands to run to the farm store, so when I returned an hour later I was very happy to see that she'd laid the egg!! Phew!  She still had very thick pasty crop, so I decided to keep her inside for another 24 hours until I was sure she was hydrated and things were moving along.  By yesterday she was outside talking and talking and living up to her name.

Cathy on the left, Poppy on the right, from a few weeks ago.

That was just one emergency this week.

Of course these things always happen when G has to go out of town for work!

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Two nights ago the palace chooks were out ranging during the evening.  I had noticed a few hours earlier that Chubby Butter had a lot of white urates all over her hind end.  I made a mental note to catch her later, give her a quick wash before the urates burned her skin, and see if I could figure what was causing it.  

At roosting time out in the dark coop I found her and carried her inside. I was very shocked to find a large red mass sticking out of her vent.  I won't post photos here since some folks might find them shocking, but if you are interested, just google 'prolapsed cloaca'. 

Just like with penile prolapses in horses, dogs and other mammals, tissue that lives primarily on the inside is not supposed to be outside and exposed to air! It is actually life threatening. 

So I washed her up, couldn't see any trauma to the tissue (other hens will pick at it--the google will tell you how dangerous that is), applied sterile lube to keep it moist, and hoped for the best.

The next morning I had excavators coming to dig our pond.  I had to move the horses and some fencing, and supervise what was going on for a few hours.  Meanwhile poor Chubby still had her insides hanging on the outside.  This also means that it's very difficult for her to even defecate, and if the ureter from her kidneys was blocked, that could cause permanent damage or death.  

Finally by 11 am I rushed into town to buy my very first tube of hemorrhoid cream.  Yep--Preparation H with aloe.  A good thing to have in the first aid kit any way.  

Over the next 24 hours I can't even count the number of times that I pushed that cloaca back inside her.  The cream might have been helping a little bit, but it certainly wasn't visibly shrinking and tucking back inside.  And what's worse, parts of it looked like they had some surface damage and the cells had died.  It's quite an infection risk too as you can imagine, with that part of the body.  At one point I reached up further, and felt an egg there, but it was still in the oviduct.  That may or may not be the cause of her initial prolapse. She has never had trouble laying (that we know of) since we got her back in February. In six years of chicken keeping I have never dealt with this before. I have some concern that she may have urolithiasis, based on a firm mass I felt where I think her urine excretes into the cloaca. I tried picking away some whitish muck in there with my needle drivers, and every time I did more urine would come out.  Could she really be blocked??? Chickens do get renal gout.  Anyone who has had a male cat  or goat likely knows about the danger of urinary blockage.

So when I checked her the next morning and the egg was further down, I was relieved.  I pushed the cloaca back in another time, she passed some feces, and I turned off the lights and hoped she'd get to work getting that egg out.  

She did it!

But she was still wearing her insides on the outside. Prep H and push it back in. Gave her metacam again. She is NOT a tame hen, but with this much handling she has been getting used to me.  I actually think she realizes that she gets relief for a while after I 'help her in'.  Then she gets millet as a treat when I put her back.  

Last night at 10:30 pm I pushed it back one more time, and hoped for the best.

This morning it is still in! She is passing a bunch of normal stuff that has been backed up.  I am giving her two avian supplements, one with oil and probiotics, and one that vitamins and minerals and DL-methionine that should help acidify her urine, if too much calcium was the initial cause.  She has apple cider vinegar in her water.  

I'm really hoping this will all resolve, as we've grown quite fond of her in the last few months.  But it's a little unnerving that I don't know the actual cause.  The egg she passed was her normal type of egg, no larger.  She doesn't feel extremely overweight.  I just don't know.  

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A few more updates.  Our hen Pencil did indeed have surgery a few weeks ago.  The anesthesia went fine, so I have some of my confidence back.  I think she was under for over an hour.  Unfortunately we don't really know what had caused her breathing difficulties, but we did find that she had enormous fatty deposits in her belly, and adhesions too.  Really makes no sense.  We really couldn't see far up in there to see if there was a tumour, there was just so much fat! The intestine looked healthy.  We think her oviduct was inactive but it was really hard to see.  She had a bit of fat removed so that the giant incision could be closed.  Not a surgery that yielded many answers.  She is doing well, and has become a much more friendly hen towards me.

The palace chooks have taken to raiding the tack room ever since one of them discovered a red bucket full of chicken scratch one day. People really underestimate how quickly chickens learn.

Granny Rose needed her belly tapped before G went to Vancouver.  We got 180 cc of fluid out, and she seemed to feel much better.  The next morning we found that the tiny 25 gauge hole from my needle had continued to leak ascites fluid, and she soaked through her two towels.  Bizarre!! But of course she felt amazing and was active and ranging all day. Again, we still don't know what is wrong with her.  Cancer? Ovarian cyst? Other? 

I might have to change my vocation title from 'hobby farmer' to 'chicken nurse.'  

I just would like a bit of a break.

Not gonna happen. Stay tuned.

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