Chicken with a Prolapse and How to fix it!

  This is Kristine, a large fowl Cochin mix.....

As you can see, she has not been feeling very well. Her comb is pale, she is dirty, her tail is down and her undercarriage/butt fluff is caked with poo. 

I have noticed her being this way for about 2 weeks, but have been unable to catch her until yesterday. I promptly flipped her topsy tervey to check out her rump and came to find this.....

This is often called a Prolapse by mistake. Prolapse is a normal part of laying an egg. 

  The oviduct's shell gland, pushes an egg out of the cloaca. It does this by holding onto the egg and prolapsing or turning itself inside out to push the egg out of the vent but then goes back inside the hen. If this tissue stays outside the vent it is a very bad thing and is called Blowout. Or called eversion.

  There are a few ways to fix this but I have found that most people just "cull" the chicken. What I have read, most people use Vaseline or KY jelly to help with pushing it back into the hen. Another thing some use is Preparation H, because it helps with the swelling and makes it easier to push the tissue back in. 

  Also an "old wives tail" solution is honey, Yes, honey. 

Many of these things have worked for many people. But what I have see a lot of is that the blowout will reoccur a few times if not just stay out and that is when the hen needs to be culled. 

 Other things that are needed to help the blowout heal is to put the hen in a clean, dark place by herself and reduce the amount of feed to slow down or stop egg production so that the prolapse has less of a chance to happen again.

 I plan on using honey (because that is what I have) and trying this once or maybe twice if it happens again. But if it continues past that, I will be culling my poor girl.

  Have you had to deal with a blowout? If you have what method did you use and what was the out come?

Animals, Animals every where!

  AAaaahhhh, Breathing a sigh of relief the big holidays are over. I hope everyone had a fun, safe Christmas and New years. We all survived here, our wallets are a bit wounded but will heal with tender love and care and will gain weight after a few pay checks.
  Uh, well I guess not all of us survived the holidays, we went ahead and invited one of the turkey toms inside for Thanksgiving dinner and the other tom for Christmas dinner. They were good company and made those dinner so much better, those boys each had their day to be our guest of honor.  

  For Christmas I decided to get my wonderful husband a new puppy. I hopped on Craigslist and began my search. After a few days I found a family who's female Great Dane had pups with a Black Lab/German Shepherd mix male and I knew that this was the one. They were asking a real world price for a mutt not some high $ amount for what they had now deemed a designer breed with some stupid nonsense name of the combined breeds. Don't get me wrong I love all those dogs just as much as the pure breeds, but in no way dose it make sense to charge pure breed prices (witch includes shots, free first vet check, puppy packet, option to buy AKC papers for your dog, and an adoption contract with return clause and agreement not to breed said dog. If they are good breeders.) for a MUTT with no shots. Yes this includes Labradoodles, Yorkey Poos and many others.
  Ok I am done ranting (maybe). Here is the adorable lil pup we brought home...

  This is Ratchet at 6 weeks. As in the Transformer character, we have a thing for naming our dogs after Transformers and our cats after car dealers. 

This is him a few DAYS later, not a week or two but days later. This boy is growing fast.

Here he is about 4 days later with his best bud Barricade our English Mastiff. These two are the picture of friendship. Jazz did not quite care for him much at this point as Jazz is a 4 year old Great Dane, which if you know Danes means he is an old man, and old men don't care for them damn young ins (they tend to go after your toes and he hates that).

And here he is now. This was taken the day before yesterday.

These were taken the same day. He has now won over Jazz but Barricade is still his number one bud. One of the first things I teach my pups (besides sit, stay, and where to potty) is how to pose for my obsession with taking pictures.

  Speaking of my picture taking problem, the day those precious puppy pics were taken it was a beautiful sunny day (although very cold and icy). So I took advantage of the shimmering golden rays of warmth beaming down from the sky as blue as an ice burg and played paparazzi to my chickens. Get ready for a picture overload......

 This is Bonnie and Effie they are Exchequer Leghorns and lay small white eggs. They were brought here by a fellow BYCer whom had gone through a hard time, had to move and could no longer keep her 5 chickens. Sadly her Welsummer, Salma was killed before she could bring them to their new home. 

 In this one you see Sunny, my Buff Orpington and Gertrude (another of the 4 girls brought by the BYCer). This picture would have been better if one of the pigs had not come up and nudged my right arm. Damn pigs!

 Again Beautiful Gertrude. She has not begun laying for me yet but seems to be thinking about it as her comb is becoming more and more red.

 Handsome boy here. This is Seth ( I have wrongly called him Steve on occasion whoops). His prior family had bought what they were told were all pullets. One of the young girls in the family had dubbed this sweet lil chick hers. Well sadly it turned out to be a little cockerel who has turned into a great rooster.

 Man, by the look on this Easter Egger's face you would think that life has just handed her such a bad hand. But she is sweet and lays some big beautiful blue eggs.

(Left to right; Motor Mouth a Brown Leghorn, Fancy a Silver Laced Cochin, and Blue a Blue Andilution sp?.)

Three old biddies (they are not really old 1.5yr old) standing out side of the run looking in. What are they staring at so intently and seem to be gossiping about? Non other than......

 Big Daddy Red, my Road Island Red rooster. Why you ask are they swooning over him???????

 Because he is just one big hunk-O-rooster!

 Yet to be named and of unknown parentage, this up and coming rooster has amazing color. He came from yet another BYC friend. I had bought several eggs from her to hatch for specific egg laying colors. I had a 99% hatch as they were hatched by two broodies at the time, Kristine a Black Cochin mix and Fancy. Sadly all but this boy and three pullets did not survive hawks, other predators or apparently  drowning in the pig water at the age of 6 weeks old.  

 Here are two of the three pullets. Also unnamed but almost at POL (Point Of Lay)

 Maggie, a Gold Laced Wyandotte. She is a hefty girl, the last of the 4 from another BYC home. Not yet laying but in good time she will.

 Frolicking!

  After I figure out how to make a page for ya'll to send in pictures I hope you will do just that. I love seeing happy chickens.

  I really can't wait for spring and summer weather. Longer days brings not only more eggs but more warm time outside with camera in hand.
   

So many things in the works.

  When it comes to sitting down and blogging, I really want to do it. I have a few blogs that I follow myself and wish I could be half as good as them. Now yes, I tend to be busy for a few hours a day what with 5 farm kids, three farm dogs (yes we added one for the holidays), the pigs and many MANY chickens. But all those chores are done in the morning and evening, during the day when all the kids are at school my brain goes blank and either I don't remember that I was going to blog or I can't think of what to write.
  So no more saying that I will be doing this more often, but I will be trying to. Ha Ha we will see how this works.
  As far as the blog site it's self, I am really trying to get it looking nice but I don't quite know how to. Slowly I have figured out a few things but not as many as I would like to.

  Other things that are soon to change..... We are looking for a new home/farm!
 Hopefully we will find larger property for the animals and a larger house for the kids. I am so very excited for this and yet it is one of the hardest things to do. Find a house that has what you want, check! Put high $ offer on house, check! Be out bid and heart broken then have to find a new house to love.....check. Man what a roller coaster. But I will keep my hopes up and fingers crossed that the perfect house is waiting for us and that is why we have lost all the good ones along the way.

  Do you own your home or are you hunting for your first one? Did the right house just jump up and say "Hi, I am the house you wanna buy."