4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[grahamrhind]

Warning - graphic descriptions below.

 

I came home yesterday to find one of my two newest dead in the run. She had just started laying and, as far as I can work out, had just laid. Her back end was very bloody and about half a metre of her intestines (undamaged) were out. The egg itself was undamaged and unmarked.

 

I have no experience with prolapses and descriptions I've read makes them sound mostly like fairly minor hernia which one can push back with a finger. In this case it looks like she either had a huge prolapse or (and I really hope this isn't so) she had a minor one which then caught on something and unraveled her intestines - she only made it about half a metre from the nesting box before keeling over. It doesn't bear thinking about, and I think (and hope) the end was very quick, but to be prepared if this happens again, does anybody have experience with this type of thing? Does it sound like a prolapse or something else?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Beantree]

Sounds like a predator or the other chickens? A prolapse is nowhere near the intestines, but may have attracted unwanted attention.

[grahamrhind]

Thanks Beantree.

 

I'm 100% sure it's not a predator (we don't have a predator problem at all, and I wouldn't expect a predator to attack one chicken but leave it uneaten/undamaged, and ignore the other two). Equally, neither of the other two hens is aggressive and them being able to corner the victim in a run the size I have to be able to do that to her would need a lot of planning.

 

For the non-squeamish I found a photo of a (living) chicken with the same issue at https://airanlot.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/entrails/ . One of the comments there might be the answer:

 

"This was more than likely done when the hen was trying to lay her egg, the entrails being pushed into let’s call it the egg- laying canal through a weakened?/ less elastic and damaged? area of the internal side wall of the vent – a bit like a hernia that just kept on going! Many moons ago, as a boy, I kept show pigeons and something more or less identical happened to one of them. Mainly because I hadn’t the guts! to put it down myself and having invested several weeks of pocket money in this bird, I asked the vet. In an effort to encourage me / professional interest?, he carried out a free PM and found that the loop of gut originated through the side wall of the rear passage about an inch inside. He mentioned the above as possible reasons also mentioned that the initial damage may have been caused by an extra bit of shell with a sharp edge from another previous broken egg being stuck to the one she was trying to lay. Once a nick was there, the pressures of egg- birth would take over and she would basically push herself inside out until she felt relief, as if she had laid an egg! Once again, not very nice!

However, 55 or so years later, I can still hear the vet trying to make me feel better by saying,”Ach well, I wouldn’t worry about it, at least it’s not contagious!”"

[Luvachicken]

I'm sorry you lost one of your girls especially if she had similar to the photo, poor little thing.

Out of all the chickens I've had, I've only ever had one with a prolapse.

It didn't look like the photo you have put on, more like a kidney shaped blob hanging out.

When I took her to the vet he said it was best to put her to sleep as it would just keep coming out.

[Lewis]

Sorry to hear you lost a chook.

 

A prolapse, as you say, is usually smaller than a golf ball and easily popped back in. It could be that the whole oviduct came out, think like an inside out sock but that would take a lot of force and I would expect another bird or animal to have caused it to come out further or got stuck on something.