[teggy]

Hii have a chicken which has a huge swelling below her back end ,its about a large handfull  in size and is very soft  and quite warm to touch , we have treated it as if she where egg bound ,but its becoming apparent thats not the case ,she drinking loads and eating as normal,but does not move around alot as it must be quite heavy,it appeared over a week ,and she is about 7 months old ,also she has either lost or pulled out her feathers on her chest and lost all feathers around swelling ,we are running out of ideas other wise its off to vets ,any advice would be great thanks ,andy

[little blue]

I take it she's stopped laying?
What do you feed them?  The feather pulling may be moult or overfeeding oats in warm weather (experience speaking!)
Does sound like a tumour or cyst...

[teggy]

she is fed layers and whole wheat ,and i dont think shes laying anything ,there are 12 hens in all so its difficult to tell !! her feathers  on her chest have been odd for a while as all the others look really well and showing no signs of moulting ,and they are all same breed ,i think the out look is not looking good ,but we will see how she goes !!!

[shetlandpaul]

is she a pet or farm animal. sounds like a visit to the vet. really sounds like she needs antibiotics but it could be anything. the featherscould be a symtom of ill health think of a dog thats under the weather there coat loses its shine.

[pauline]

We had the same thing happen to our chickens. Took the first one to the vet but they didn't know what it was so treated her with a couple of things (don't remember what she got though) anyway it didn't work and she went downhill and the swelling got bigger. we lost her in the end but our other chickens also bacame ill and out of 11 we were left with 3. They all had very loose droppings as well as the swelling. Can you move the sick bird away from the others just incase it is infectious? we never did find out what caused it and all the books we had did not point to anything specific.
Sorry if thats a bit doom and gloom and not much help.

[teggy]

Hi there,we did have her seperated from the others ,but had perked up !.and today im happy to say she is looking very perky !!!! the swelling looks smaller and not as red ,and it took time to pick her out from the others which was good news ,so hopefully she on the mend ,so we will see how she goes ,she is a pet as such we love all our chicks but also they serve a purpose as well ,so things looking up ,will keep you posted .iIm sorry to hear about your chickens ,i think thats everyones worst nightmare to lose so many .Thanks for all the replys and suggestions

[little blue]

Glad she seems abit better.  Its one of those things that isn't in the chicken books. Would say it could be anything from a tumour to an infected feather follicle or something.  We lost 2 hens a few months apart, very suddenly. The cost of transport to and an autopsy cost more than all the hens, and all their replacements (15 in total!) so we dont know what killed them either, no lumps or bumps though.
Hope she makes a good recovery

[shetlandpaul]

when you cull some have a good inspection of there bits they are quite intresting. then when you have a dead one you can see if there were any odd things going on.