# Chicken's belly is hot and swollen



## KristiStone

I just noticed yesterday that my chicken's belly is looking swollen and it hot to the touch. Not just slightly warm, but REALLY warm. I did a quick search of what it could be and found ascites, but I'm not sure it's that. For a long time her bowel movements have been on the softer side, not really ever normal that I can remember. I've looked into that a few times, and because she doesn't act sick or anything, I haven't been able to pin down exactly what is wrong. Since these new developments, though, I feel like time is probably of the essence here if I want to save her.

Has anyone had any issue like this with their chickens? What did you do?


----------



## ksalvagno

I hope you can find out and your chicken will be ok.


----------



## KristiStone

Thanks Karen, me too! Chickens are somehow more of a mystery to me than other animals for some reason!


----------



## Hannah21

We had this same thing,this spring..she slowly went down hill *Older hen*we just put her to sleep,believed it was a stuck egg due to lack of Oyster shells,we now make sure we mix it in the feed to be safe.


----------



## Trickyroo

Egg bound maybe ? Try sitting her in some warm water , if it is , it could help her pass it. 
She can die if she doesn't....look at her vent , is there any poop stuck there ?


----------



## Greybird

She might just be fat. Hens can really pile the fat onto their abdomens like you wouldn't believe, especially once they get to be a year old or so, and they are always naturally very hot by our standards.
If she seems okay otherwise then I wouldn't panic - just keep an eye on her.


----------



## KristiStone

Trickyroo said:


> Egg bound maybe ? Try sitting her in some warm water , if it is , it could help her pass it.
> She can die if she doesn't....look at her vent , is there any poop stuck there ?


Hi Laura---gah, sorry it took so long for me to get back to this thread. I promptly forgot about it when I gave up trying to figure out what was wrong.

I did check to see if she was egg-bound, but that wasn't it. Actually, the issue was salpingitis, and I just lost her last week. I didn't realize that she was laying lash eggs last year when I found a couple of them. I think if I had known what they were, I could have probably saved her, but you never know. I necropsied her and found a bunch of lash eggs free floating in her abdomen, yuck. Poor thing.

You asked about if she had poop stuck to her vent--yes, a lot of it toward the end. She was always kind of poopy-goopy on her backside, but everything seemed ok until I started this thread. She actually seemed ok after I started this thread too. I could never figure out the cause of the diarrhea on her back feathers, she didn't seem to fit the profile for worms or cocci or anything.


----------

