I guess the most helpful place to start would be with a little history.
First off, let me just say that this blog is only a diary of MY experiences, it is not intended as advice, I have no veterinary training at all, and you take it as it is- a personal blog, with personal opinions and experiences. I am just incredibly lucky to have the most amazing team of vets who will ALWAYS do their very best by my chooks, and understand 100% that these are pets, and not egg laying machines. I am completely and utterly grateful for the work they do with my ladies, and I couldn't do it without them.
So, back to the topic in hand:
Lola was rescued from the battery farm and came to live with me on 23rd May 2009.
Over the last couple of months we have had ongoing problems with crop/gut stasis. Faecal testing hasn't shown anything particularly unusual; moderate brachyspira, treated with tylan (and then repeated), staph and strep (apparently normal) although two of our vets feel that strep from a faecal sample is unusual. As a sensitivity test had been carried out on the sample, we went ahead and treated for the strep.
None of the above have helped. When I let the girls out of the henhouse in the morning, I always check their crop, and on average for one day only every 6-10 days Lola will have food in there still. She would then be very lethargic, no apetite, no energy at all really, just wants to lay down. She has also had purpling to the back of her comb, this comes and goes.
Our 'main' vet, decided that a more preventative course of oral metoclopramide may be beneficial, which we have been doing for a while now and it has certainly helped. Lola was having this twice a day at roughly 12 hourly intervals. I found that even on the odd days when she got up with stasis, she would still eat and drink; although her appetite was small, and the lethargy was nowhere near how it had been; she would happily pootle about in the garden, but would have frequent 'snooze breaks'.
A couple of weeks ago I dropped the dose to once a day, in the evening about an hour or so before she went to bed.
Last Tuesday she laid quite a strange egg, very odd in colour, rough texture, slightly slab-sided. On Sunday morning she laid an awful soft egg, which is so unlike Lola. We have had lots of wrinkly shells, very thin shells and so on. All very unlike Lola. She was also producing bright green droppings, followed by a slightly more normal looking dropping, but with yellowy fluid. Her undercarriage area had felt slightly puffy the day before (something else I check regularly), was slightly less puffy on Sunday but possibly distended none the less.
I popped her off to the vets, and the vet did feel that she really doesn't need to be laying abnormal eggs on top of everything else. We can't say for sure whether there is a link between the weird eggs and the stasis, but we decided to go ahead and implant her with suprelorin. This is not licensed for chickens as far as I am aware, although it is being more widely used in the avian world in general.
She had the implant between her shoulders; I have mostly heard of it going into the breast, but as it is only popped under the skin I suppose it makes no difference where it goes really. The needle used to pop the implant in is quite hefty, we tried without any anaesthetic, but Lola found it quite painful, so she had a smidge of local, and then didn't feel a thing.
Sunday evening; didn't appear to be sore at all, would let me run my hand down her back with not so much as a flinch. She ate well, seemed in good spirits, I expected her to want an early night but at 8.30pm+ she was still digging and scratching about in the run with her partner in crime, Ellie!
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