Early on the morning of Friday, August 5th, I discovered one of our hens, Lamborghini, had a prolapsed vent and helped her pass an egg that was bound.
Before last year, I had never owned a chicken. If you had told me five years ago that I'd live in Idaho and have chickens today, I wouldn't have believed you. So thankful that I was able to apply my prior nursing experience to help our hen. My husband would have just culled our hen if I could not save her. I am not a licensed veterinary doctor. This article is for educational and informational purposes and is not intended to replace medical advice or services from a licensed provider.
When I first discovered our hen's vent prolapse, I had gone outside because the chickens were being noisy. However, it was not the hen with the prolapsed vent being loud; our other three hens were freaking out. Lamborghini was straining and panting in a penguin stance with a mass of tissue protruding from her vent that was the size of a large orange and bleeding. Small chunks of flesh were also in the fluffy feathers on her bottom.
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I immediately took the hen to the bath, cleaned her with warm water, and recalled an experience from my first nursing job in which a couple of other nurses and myself had to care for a patient with paraphimosis. As new grad RNs, we were shocked when the doctor ordered us to literally pour some sugar on the patient’s penis, but it worked, and the patient avoided surgical intervention.
I did not have sugar available nearby, but I did have Epsom salt, so our chicken got a nice long Epsom salt bath, which helped reduce swelling enough to allow for the reinsertion of most of the tissue. However, the chicken wouldn't stop straining, so I applied a paste of manuka honey and organic sugar to the swollen tissue and allowed the chicken some rest while I ran to the store for a few supplies.
I used water and povidone-iodine to clean the hen’s vent before placing her in another Epsom salt bath. With the next bath, I was able to reinsert the prolapse once again. I used gentle massage and counter-pressure to help our hen pass an egg without a shell that had been bound, causing her to strain frequently, making the prolapse worsen. I did not see the bound egg at any point during this process until the hen passed it in the Epsom salt bath.
It was truly like a chicken water birth! After the bath, I sprayed a bit of colloidal silver on the hen’s vent before reinsertion. I considered putting in a stitch, but I did not want her to rip if she started bearing down, so I didn’t. I added probiotics and "chicken e-lixir," a water additive with prebiotics, calcium, vitamin D, E, electrolytes, and oregano essential oil, to our hen’s water since she did not have much of an appetite. Then, I put our hen in a dog kennel in the dark to try to keep her from producing eggs overnight and decided to reassess the situation in the morning.
On Saturday, August 6th, our hen got three additional Epsom salt baths. I had to reinsert the chicken’s vent so many times that I felt defeated and thought we might have to cull our hen. She did not want to sit down or even eat or drink unless the food/water was held beside her beak.
On day three, Sunday, August 7th, Lamborghini’s vent was not retracting back in as it should after she would bear down, and she started bearing down frequently again. I helped her pass another bound egg after an Epsom salt bath. The shell was a bit harder than the one she passed Friday but came out broken in one push after she pushed out the yolk and white. At this point, the skin on her vent was dark and looked a bit necrotic (dead). I had to reinsert the prolapse several times daily after the vent failed to retract properly with bowel movements. I decided to leave the hen in our empty bathtub/room for ease in cleaning and reinserting the prolapse since she had no desire to try to get out.
By Tuesday, August 9th, the necrotic-looking skin had become whiter. So, I was beginning to question if the sugar may have contributed to yeast/fungal infection despite using povidone-iodine at a minimum of daily throughout the ordeal. Therefore, I added frankincense, lavender, and tea tree essential oil to my homemade infused witch hazel and applied it generously to the prolapse before reinsertion. I reapplied the homemade witch hazel spray with each cleaning and reinsertion of the prolapse, which was becoming less frequent.
On Thursday, August 11th, after the prolapse had finally stayed in place for almost 24 hours, I found our hen prolapsed again, but this time there was a half-dollar size, quarter-inch thick mass of white and black tissue barely hanging on that I was able to remove successfully. Then, I reinserted her prolapse, which was thankfully the last time.
At this point, I considered Lamborghini healed up enough to go back outside, but the reintroduction was not pleasant. Our other Rhode Island white hen who took over the role of lead chicken while Lamborghini slept inside went straight for her neck as soon as she saw her, so I had to separate them for a while. It has been a week since I put Lamborghini back outside, and she has yet to lay another egg. However, our hen has been happy and healthy, living her best chicken life. Her appetite did not return until she was back in her natural habitat, outside, and could forage again. I am not sure how she will do laying her next egg, but I will update this article whenever that may be.
Update: On Monday, August 29th, I found four eggs for the first time in over three weeks. That means Lamborghini is back to laying! This is the first egg she has laid since the two that were bound during the week-long vent prolapse ordeal. It was a bit small, but I was ecstatic to find she is back to laying!
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