Unsecure chicken perches

[jacquie879]

Hi there

 

I lost a chicken at the beginning of the year from this horrible infection and it looks as though I am going to lose my favourite chook Mavis very shortly from the same thing.

She is an ex battery and has never laid since we got her 18mths ago. I look her to the vet this morning and he gave her an antibiotic injection and took as small amount of fluid from her belly...but I think it will all be in vain as she isn't eating or drinking unless I syringe liquid into her.

Basically I need to know whether there is anyway peritonitis can be prevented and what to look out for to catch it early enough to have a positive outcome.

 

I look forward to any advice.

 

Jacquie

[sandyhas3chucks]

perhaps a suprelorin implant BEFORE they get it?????

I have 3 2 years free ex bats that i took in August.

3 of them have had peritonitis... one blew up like a football in 4 days ( spotted Friday afternoon, had to wait till Tuesday for vet that can drain....

One had 750 ml clearish fluid drained.

A flippin week later another! she had 550 ml of egg like fluid drained.

Neither of these were actually acting unwell!!!

4 and 5 weeks later both were still fine, the first one had just started to very minimally fill up, so decided to try a relatively cheap treatment a delvosterone injection.

Neither had any apparent reaction, almost 7 weeks on and both are doing fine and ate booked in for a reapeat injection.

[Rosey Supposey]

Vet explained to me that Ex Batts are sadly prone to peritonitis, as they're bred to be unnaturally heavy layers their egg tackle is more likely to get all messed up.

 

When I first encountered peritonitis I had the chook drained (vet showed me what he drained out!) then the Superlorin/Suprelorin implant put in. Sadly that wasn't enough and chook later had an enormous operation to clean her insides out.

 

Now, as soon as an Ex-Batt's eggs start going wrong I put her on Suprelorin. I do it before any problems set in. Its not an easy decision, as one hen has really struggled with the implant and I hate seeing her struggling, but it's better than what my poor first hen had to go through.

 

As an aside, the avian vet I use (who is a total ruddy miracle of a vet) is perfectly happy with Suprelorin. But my local generic vet won't use it, and says it should never ever be used in a hen - roosters only! He's never explained why though, whenever I've asked him he just mutters about "suppose we can use it if YOU really want to..."