I nursed a hen with peritonitis through 9 months of last year...
I tried a lot of different things and some treatments worked somewhat for a while, giving her another few weeks of more or less normal life, but the liquid buildup always came back eventually, and made her very uncomfortable, when her belly grew to be really big and tight like a ball...
She started off appearing OK like yours, but the more the bloat advanced (over a few eeks) the less active she would become, looking tired, standing around alone rather than roaming with the other, and eating less and less, and loosing a lot of weight.
Initially the vet gave her calcium & oxytocin, to help with a stuck egg, but she wasn't eggbound, and it didn't help at all. She had antibiotics too, but that didn't make a huge difference either (in any case, if the liquid stuff in her belly got infected internally it would have killed her in days if not hours).
I then found out about the 'Superlorin' hormone implant (look it up on chicken forums, lots of info out there): some people have used this quite successfully with peritonitis hens. It's supposed to halt egg production to allow the body to absorb all that liquid without more egg fluid being produced all the time (it's like a microchip injected under the skin, originally developed to treat aggression in dogs... go figure!). It's hideously expensive (about £50) and the effect is supposed to last 6-12 months. The vet didn't know about its use in chickens, but she did her research after I insisted, and we tried it on Luna (although I thought it was crazy to spend so much money on a chicken, but I could not not to).
The vet also tried the 'drainage' method of the fluid, it was quite a procedure and only drained 30-40ml every time, as it was really sticky and lumpy stuff and clogging up even quite a big needle...
Either the implant or the draining or a combination of both helped for a little while, Luna got her life back for about 6 weeks, then she started blowing up again. The implant was clearly not working on her as long it might do (it doesn't always work well apparently). So after that all I could do is taking her for another round of 'draining' every few weeks, whenever she was back to her mopey sick self. The draining took it out of her every time (she would hide in the coop for the rest of the day) but it did take the pressure of her abdomen and she would perk up for a while, and I would be so happy seeing her roaming around with the others again and have some fun (the longest, with the implant, was 8 weeks, the shortest was 2 weeks, the relapses came sooner as the time passed).
Looking back I think I should / would have also tried homeopathy, and massive doses of Vitamin C which is supposed to work wonders with inflammation/poisoning/tumours (not sure about peritonitis, but you come to a stage where trying anything can either help or it's the end)... but we run out of time...
she got to a very bad point and I had to let her go just before Xmas.
Sorry about the long post, but maybe it gives you some options to try. Hope they help Kroshka.
Topic: HELP! Probable peritonitis in Indian Runner (Read 11821 times)
