Laying hen with soft eggs, cloacal prolapse, blood around cloaca

RE: Laying hen with soft eggs, cloacal prolapse, blood around cloaca

Sarah Keir — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 12:38:02 GMT

Difficult to shake once in the drinker but I have finally found a use for the battery operated mild foamer that has been in my cupboard for years!

RE: Laying hen with soft eggs, cloacal prolapse, blood around cloaca

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 17:03:13 GMT

[quote user="Sarah Keir"]Just done a Tylan course - any tips for getting it to dissolve in the water?[/quote]

Shake it and shake it and shake it. It goes eventually.

RE: Laying hen with soft eggs, cloacal prolapse, blood around cloaca

Marie Kubiak — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 16:40:12 GMT

[quote user="Sarah Keir"]

Just done a Tylan course - any tips for getting it to dissolve in the water? And also how to you measure 2 grams? (for one litre) - I used my special cooking scales but most people will not have these.

[/quote]

I used little scoops that we had come with faecal pots as we worked out they measured 1g. Doesn't help much if you have different ones I'm afraid

I haven't had any issues dissolving it, could it be a hard/soft water thing? Maybe boil and cool water first and see if that makes a difference.

Marie

RE: Laying hen with soft eggs, cloacal prolapse, blood around cloaca

Sarah Keir — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 16:10:11 GMT

RE: Laying hen with soft eggs, cloacal prolapse, blood around cloaca

Vet12345 — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 12:39:38 GMT

Hi Marie and Sarah,

Many thanks for your replies. Sorry for the delay in my reply. It is great to learn from everyone and will be interesting to see how things go. I would like to have some backyard chooks at some point like Sarah. Not an area we got much training in at vet school but they seem to be becoming more popular.

Kind regards,

RE: Laying hen with soft eggs, cloacal prolapse, blood around cloaca

Marie Kubiak — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 19:10:45 GMT

[quote user="Sarah Keir"]

One of my chooks is laying soft/rubbery eggs that are nearly always broken in the nest box. They were infected with mycoplasma a couple of years ago when I bought in a couple of new girls from a s*** source. Is it worth treating the affected chook/all of them again or just accept her innards are knackered?

I only have a 3 chook back garden flock for my breakfast eggs and to learn about chickens as we get lots of similar chickens brought in and I knew nothing about them until I got some myself!

[/quote]

I'd be tempted to treat all of them as they will all have chronic infection (it never gets eliminated) and treating the most vulnerable one while the others continue to shed bacteria is fairly pointless. The aim is to reduce bacterial numbers to try and re-establish a subclinical host-bacterial relationship. Chicken with concurrent health problems may never acheive this balance or oviductal damage can be marked so normality may not return. For the low cost and ease of in water medication with Tylan it is definitely worth trying though and this is my first line for mycoplasma

RE: Laying hen with soft eggs, cloacal prolapse, blood around cloaca

Sarah Keir — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 16:42:22 GMT

I only have a 3 chook back garden flock for my breakfast eggs and to learn about chickens as we get lots of similar chickens brought in and I knew nothing about them until I got some myself!

RE: Laying hen with soft eggs, cloacal prolapse, blood around cloaca

Marie Kubiak — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 12:11:13 GMT

Basic nutrition is feed a formulated layers pellet plus browsing greens (not long grass and owners are not permitted to feed kitchen scraps) with some oyster shell or grit for additional calcium/abrasive material for the gizzard. A little more detail here: https://www.forthebirdsdvm.com/pages/caring-for-pet-chickens

The intracardiac injection may have caused blood escape into an air sac which then can be exhaled.

It may well have been urates that were released, difficult to say without seeing it and a bit late to scrape it out a bin now!

Marie

RE: Laying hen with soft eggs, cloacal prolapse, blood around cloaca

Vet12345 — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 18:28:53 GMT

Hi Marie,

Many thanks for your informative post!

Do you know of any resources for correct nutrition for poultry (If you have time)?

Euthanasia was sevo by mask then IV pentobarb into medial metatarsal vein, I also gave a bit intracardiac (but got nice flash back) just to be sure.

What I saw on the table was (ok hope no one is still eating) like slightly watered down custard with some white streaks in it, mostly yellow creamy would probably describe it best.

Good to hear it's not likely a notifiable disease though.

Many thanks for your help

RE: Laying hen with soft eggs, cloacal prolapse, blood around cloaca

Marie Kubiak — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 18:28:22 GMT

Soft eggs in my experience usually arise from inflammation of the oviduct and rapid passage of eggs through it but wise to check diet for low Ca content too though actually chickens manage to maintain Ca well.
Difficult to give any real input without diagnostics or pm but Mycoplasma would be my top guessbased on symptom alone with E.coli, Salmonella and viral causes less common.
A bloody vent and prolapse may be primary infection/inflammation or cannibalism from other chickens in a more prominent vent (swollen, red or elevated due to posture) in a weaker animal.
Nothing to suggest notifiable disease based on description. Soft eggs are a common reason for presentation and APHA would probably get annoyed if they were notified every time!
How did you euthanase it? If clean IV pentobarb no bloody discharge would be expected but crop contents (brown) can reflux and exit via mouth or nostrils. If a less precise injection/cervical dislocation then vascular laceration in respiratory tract is possible.
Were faeces yellow/creamy or were you looking at urates which should be white-yellow and creamy?
Marie

RE: Laying hen with soft eggs, cloacal prolapse, blood around cloaca

Vet12345 — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 18:27:08 GMT

Thanks Wynne..good point!

RE: Laying hen with soft eggs, cloacal prolapse, blood around cloaca

Hannah Wynne Richards — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 18:26:43 GMT

I've very little knowledge of poultry medicine, but the soft shells made me womder if possibly a calcium deficiency?
Wynne