Hen w/ Decreased Appetite, Small Less-Frequent Stools w/ Lots of Yellowish Urates, Gas Bloating in Abdomen

[henfriend1998]

Hey y’all! I wanted some advice on treating my hen, Frida. She’s a five year old buff brahma hen who lives indoors and free ranges most of the day most days. She was hand raised along with her sisters, is very bonded to me and my partner, and is the sole survivor of a raccoon attack we lost both her sisters, Rhonda and Muriel, in. I’m a crazy chicken papa and I’ve shamelessly spent thousands of dollars on her emergency and follow-up vet care as she recovered from nearly fatal wounds. Her vet, who we’ve worked with since the first emergency surgery, says she’s made a full and pretty miraculous recovery, physically and emotionally. The issue we’ve run into here recently seems to be totally unrelated. I noticed around a week ago that she seemed a little off, had a poopy butt (which isn’t always unlike her, she’s a big girl with a fluffy butt), her droppings seemed smaller with a lot of urates, and she hadn’t been eating much of her layer pellets, mostly treats. We kept an eye on her, because at first there really wasn’t anything happening, I just had a feeling something wasn’t normal. Things continued that direction through this week, she paid less interest in her feed, until she totally wouldn’t touch it, but it seems like she’d dig through it and think about it. She eventually got way less enthusiastic about treats, and with some totally uninterested, which is unlike her because she’s a glutton lol. That and her droppings were the biggest thing. There were even more urates and they got more of a yellow tinge. Then the fecal matter in the droppings got smaller and smaller, once or twice there were none. Some of them were a bit watery, I’ll attach pictures in order. I’m not sure if I was just anxious and imagining it, but she seemed a tiny bit slower and less active. I felt her abdomen and wondered if it was bigger than usual. (She’s always been a big girl, except for during her recovery from her attack when she stopped eating, lost almost all of her body weight, and had to be tube fed and kept in medical boarding in the animal hospital for a couple weeks. So honestly, ever since she started eating again she has been getting spoiled, and I know it isn’t good either.) We ended up making a vet appointment once we saw the weird droppings. We went in this evening and the vet noticed right after he started the exam that her abdomen felt “pretty bloated” and ordered an X-Ray. My fears were things like water belly, reproductive issues plugging her up, some kind of infection, etc…But it wasn’t any of that, he says it’s gas. Which is wild to me! He says if he had to guess it’s from her eating something she shouldn’t (maybe people food, maybe a new kind of treat that didn’t agree with her, maybe molded feed?) that her tummy wasn’t used to and it’s thrown off her digestion and beneficial bacteria, and it’s caused a lot of gas buildup down in her abdomen. He also did a fecal float and said it looked pretty normal, aside from a lot less of the usual bacteria. His recommended treatment is 1ml of liquid Infant Gas Relief (Simethicone 20mg) 2x a day and probiotic water (dripped on her beak by syringe if she doesn’t drink it on her own) until her checkup on 4/20. I plan to give her a long warm epsom salt soak and gentle abdominal massage tomorrow. It should be said that she’s pretty much kept acting like herself the entire time. She’s still very cuddly, talking, free-ranging all around the yard, chasing bugs, jumping up on her roost, drinking from the pond, dirt bathing, preening, etc. She stopped laying but that teetered off a couple weeks ago or more. She had been laying daily after her winter molt with no issues, and then there were 2-3 days between eggs and then none. This was way before we noticed any chance in appetite or stool. Like I mentioned, she probably does get way to many treats (fresh veggies and fruit, bread scraps, mealworms when we have em, 5 grain scratch) and she had jumped up and stolen a bite of my people food on more than one occasion, but never more than she could nab in one peck. She was down to the bottom of her bag of feed, and I wonder if it could have been stale or moldy and I just couldn’t see? When we got a fresh bag today and gave her some, she pecked at the mash for a number of minutes straight (still not as ravenous as she would be lol) and made half-hearted attempts to eat the pellets. Sometimes she took her pellets dry and sometimes she’d get a mash, and we’d always throw the waste out in the yard. I have a good feeling she could have eaten some that went moldy or something…But I really want to know, what do y’all think? It’s been hard to find anything at all about gas build up and gas-related abdominal bloating in chickens. Have y’all ran into this before? If so, how did you treat it and what was the outcome? I confirmed with the vet that he doesn’t think it’s fluid buildup and saw no impacted eggs or weird masses. Advise and expertise please! Frida is my heart chicken and my best friend. I’ve kept chickens my entire life and loved them all dearly, but none of them have been like her. There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do to keep her well and happy. Thank you so much! Well wishes and prayers are welcome and so appreciated. I’ll get some pictures uploaded in the morning! It’s past 2:00am here, but I just want to get the word out ASAP in hopes I get a helpful response. I’m sure I’m not alone on this, but I get so afraid when I worry her health is at stake, especially after how much it devastated me to lose her sisters. I appreciate you!

 

[henfriend1998]

ALSO! Once or twice I have seen her squat like she’s pooping and nothing has come out. (Granted, she has had a poopy butt and the small droppings have gotten caught in her fluff before.) But could that “pooping motion” be gas release? I know chickens don’t audibly produce flatulence like some animals, but I know their digestive processes do create gas. She did this when we were in the exam room and before we left the vet she did have two much more normal looking droppings, a darker brown slightly-greenish urate capped dropping, and a small VERY smelly cecal dropping.

 

[henfriend1998]

Last addition! She had also been sneaking past the gate in the kitchen to steal some of her kitty sister’s dry cat food. I know there’s lots of protein in that, so I wonder if it could have hurt her stomach?

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

It sounds like she could use some probiotics.

 

[henfriend1998]

It sounds like she could use some probiotics.

I’ve been giving her some probiotic and vitamin/electrolyte water by dripping it into her beak w/ a syringe multiple times a day. I’m giving it to her by choice too, but she prefers to drink out of the pond lol. Is there anything else I can give her that would help? I mentioned greek yogurt to my vet and he said that might upset her system even more right now. Would apple cider vinegar me good? Is there anything else that would be beneficial to give her as far as probiotics? I wonder how this happened in the first place, like what caused the imbalance in her gut microbiome and all this gas buildup.

UPDATES TODAY: Droppings last night looked way more normal but still small and still less than usual. Today she’s better about eating her feed. She sometimes requires prompting to start, and sometimes she stops if you step away, but she’ll also peck at it on her own if she’s near it. It’s still not like how she usually is, but it’s much better. She’s still really into her mealworms and moving around the yard grazing and digging around. She’s talking and jumping up in my lap and cuddling and all her usual things. She might be a tiny bit slower and less quick to run after me. I would say her abdomen does feel bloated, but not really hard and not really soft or squishy. I’d say it feels like normal flesh, and the color of her skin there looks like it normally does. She has very fluffy butt and leg feathers, so unless I get her wet it’s hard to get a visual of the area, which I guess is a good thing. I wouldn’t say it looks distended or anything. She is our only chicken, but I can’t tell from looking at her that her abdomen is bloated. I’m going to give her an epsom salt soak and a massage later and I’ll take pictures then.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

I have never had a house chicken but I suspect that if you cut out all the treats and just give her plenty of outside time and access to plain fresh water and a good chicken feed she will perk right up. Chickens get bacteria from the dirt and other chickens. She is lacking in both. Can you build her a coop and get her a couple friends?

 

[henfriend1998]

I have never had a house chicken but I suspect that if you cut out all the treats and just give her plenty of outside time and access to plain fresh water and a good chicken feed she will perk right up. Chickens get bacteria from the dirt and other chickens. She is lacking in both. Can you build her a coop and get her a couple friends?

She does free-range in the yard for most of the day nearly every day. She does lots of dirt bathing, digging, sun-bathing, and free ranging all kinds of bugs. I see her all the time with dirt in her beak lol. She did have four other sisters and lived completely outdoors (slept in a coop, had a connected run for the daytime if we weren’t home, free-ranged throughout our large yard when we were home) before the attack that claimed the lives of the rest of the flock. When it starts to get dark at night she panics so bad until she’s inside on her roost. We were really hoping she might go broody so we could get her some chicks or fertilized eggs, but she never did. I’m worried if we got more older chickens she might get bullied to be bottom of the pecking order since she’s older and her nares/nostrils never healed back all the way and she’s combless now, so she looks a bit different. She’s so happy with us that I just worry it’d be too much stress for her. Also, honestly after losing her sisters and how difficult that was, I don’t know if I want another flock again for a while. And I grew up with chickens, so I know that’s how it goes, but it’s just hard for me. I really do appreciate the advice though, I’ve never had a house chicken either lol. But at this point she’s only indoors if we need to leave the house and to sleep overnight!

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Haha I see! I had a raccoon attack that effected one of my hens for the rest of her short life so i get it. Sometimes our intervention reaches a point of no return. I don’t know what else you could do to help. I tried to integrate my raccoon chicken with some younger pullets and it didn’t work out very well so it might not be s gamble worth taking