[TanyaGibson]

Hi folks,

Is it posisble for a chook that's stopped laying to get peritonitis?  Ginger is not her usual self - she's eating and preening but her walking is laboured and she seems to have a soft bulge between her legs where you would feel an egg developing.  The vet has taken two lots of x-rays and nothing showed up.  He can't feel a lump but it's not usual for her soft bulge to still be there (it feels a bit squishy like their crop does when it's full), especially since she stopped laying 5 months ago.  Sunday she was pumping her tail for a while but, as I say, the x-ray does not show an egg or tumour present.  She's still pooping and this morning she produced a watery poo and it doesn't look bright yellow (I've had a girl with egg peritonitis before but Ginger's poo looked more of a cream than a yellow) but I wonder if she has peritonitis?

Ginger was out of sorts a few weeks before Easter.  After several epsom salt baths and a week's dose of antibiotics she was back to her old self.  I'm not sure if what she's going thorugh now if a relapse or something different.

My vet is consulting an avian vet but wonder if anyone has any suggestions in the meantime??

Cheers,

Tanya

[Beekissed]

I doubt she has peritonitis...that can kill them pretty quickly.  She might have some lash eggs or egg tumors, though, which don't present like an actual tumor but merely as a lump of thick egg material.  That walking like a duck and the fluid in the lower abdomen can be symptoms of this.

Here's a pic or two of lash eggs or egg tumors removed from an old laying hen that had stopped laying in her 7th year, finally, and started having the same symptoms you describe...just not herself, standing around, walking a little funny, straining now and again like she was trying to have an egg but couldn't get it out...which she did, but it was one of these lash eggs in her vagina, with some smaller ones also found in her abdomen. 

This is the one she kept trying to lay but it just wouldn't advance down the canal, understandably:



Here it is next to the other, smaller lash eggs I found in her abdomen:



I culled her after noticing her behavior and the symptoms...when I opened her up to do a necropsy, fluid poured out of her abdomen that had collected around these lash eggs.  She was suffering from all that discomfort but there was nothing that could be done for her except to cull....which I should have done when she stopped laying but I let sentimentality for my old, good friend get in the way of providing her a good end, before she ever encountered this type of discomfort in her life. 

I also noted other follicles on her ovary that were black looking...not healthy at all.  She had been fine and fit as a fiddle up to the day that I noticed these symptoms, eating and drinking well and very active as usual.   

[TanyaGibson]

Thanks Beekissed.  Ginger's x-rays have come back and there is nothing showing up - not even fluid (I assume the lash eggs or egg tumours would be visible, so am ruling these out!).  Having said that, Ginger is back at the vet's today for an abdomen aspiration and blood test.  The avian vet couldn't detect fluid in the tummy but says it's worth a shot.  I hope I don't have to have her put down but realise it's a possibility.

Cheers,

Tanya