Problems with Eggs- Emma is sick!

Since a few breeding cycles the eggs of Emma - our matriarch - do not look any more how they should: the surface is not smooth any more, instead it is a bit coarse and bubbly. So I thought - okay - Emma needs some extra calcium and I put her on Calcivet for the last 4 weeks, twice a week 2 drops. As she is not a loft pigeon - only has her nest on our balcony since 4 years - I have not so much control over what she is eating besides the meals she is eating here in our living room. She has access to grit and crushed eggshells on the balcony etc.

Yesterday she laid another egg - tomorrow the second one is due - and the shell has improved a bit - not quite so coarse any more but still no as it should be. Additionally I realized that there is some blood INSIDE the egg when I held it against a halogen lamp. I amnot worried about babies not hatching because the eggs will be exchanged anyway but I am bit concerned about the blood inside and whether this might be an indicator that something is wrong.

Anyone any experience with this? I am grateful for any hint...

I've never seen a patch of blood like that in an egg, Petra!
Had a quick search and came out empty-handed. I'll try again tomorrow, but I hope someone else will be able to advise you in the meanwhile.

Thank you Teresa!!!
I spent a lot of time yesterday on the internet to look for the problem but I also found nothing

Things have turned worse yesterday: Emma is really sick. Yesterday the second egg should have been due but every time I looked into her nest I saw only one. Emma did not eat anything yesterday and I could not convince her to come in. I tried to catch her but each time I came near her she smelled the trap and jumped on the balustrade. I hoped that she would return to her nest but she did not. During the night she stayed outside ( it was not so cold as the last days). Several times I looked after her but she seemed to be sound asleep so I did not want to disturb her.

This morning I saw that she had urinated a whole lot with a lot of whites but it was too much liquid and she was puffed up of course. So I decided to catch her by all means. I had a piece of bird net still which she would not be as suspicious about and approached very slowly. I threw the net and had her quickly. What a relief

Upon checking her I felt that her abdomen was quite hard so I was not so sure whether she really had one egg inside still. I brougt into the bathroom and gave her nice warm bath, massaged her very slightly hoping that this would help to let the egg come out if there was one still - I was still not sure - wrapped her in a towel and put her in a box, warm waterbottle beneath the box and she seemed a bit more relaxed now. No more puffed up.

Then I went out on the balcony and checked the little nest once more and felt inside that the hay was wet and that there was something slimey inside. I took everything out and what I found was this:



I felt so incredibly stupid that I did not check the nest yesterday properly - I could have spared her another terrible day in pain.
She had expelled the egg but apparently the shell did not form properly and then the contents got all spilled. At least the stuff was out of her body but I think she's got an infection now so I put her immediately on Baytril. I also checked her mouth and recognized 2 very small lesions - so I knew that canker was on the way or perhaps even inside her body already - I don't know. I put her also on Spartrix this evening.

My poor Emma. I have the feeling though that she is feeling a bit better already - she seemed quite relaxed today, being warm and in a quiet place. I let her out for a few minutes when Lucky came in - who was desperately looking for her today - and they greeted each other. Then I put her back into the box.

She could watch the other pigeons outside and when they came in of course - so she does not feel left out and lonely. Her poops of course look awful at the moment:



I hope it will be better tomorrow.
I tubefed her 3 times today - so she got some calories and liquid. I pray that she will recover soon again.

This is one of those cases again where a pigeon apparently looks very healthy and from one day to another things go terribly wrong. I am only glad that Emma is a strong pijjie and has been very healthy for a long time but then the weather started to play games with very cold nights already, temperatures going up and down, Emma getting into laying mode again which is always a problem for the immune system and then apparently she had not sufficient calcium supply although I gave her calcivet twice a week since the last breeding cycle. So what went wrong - I am asking myself? I have no answer...

So my question is whether this egg problem could have been caused by canker inside her body?

Petra, I had this happen with two of my birds.
The latest my dove Papuga. For some time she laid those rough surfaced eggs and then one day she laid a broken egg, just the egg shells.
The problem was that the egg contents were spilled inside her and that could have caused egg peritonitis, which might be what Emma is experiencing. So keeping her on Baytril is a good idea and you can also add Flagyl which is a good choise for those kind of problems.
Also keep her inside warm and well hydrated.
My pigeon with this problem had a hysterectomy as the problem was repeating itself and my dove who cannot have surgery due to her age and size (my vet said she wouldn't make it through surgery) is on Lupron to stop laying eggs, which works great so far.

Reti

Reti, thank you so much. I really hope it is not egg peritonitis . She seems to feel a bit better today- I let her out again a bit when Lucky came in in order to remind him that his wife is still there and Emma greeted him. She preened herself a bit and afterwards I put her back into her box standing on a warm water bottle so that it was snuggly warm inside. This morning I tubefed her again 20 ml of baby rice cereal with vitamins added, a grinded peanut and a tiny tip of honey. For lunch she had 20 big defrosted peas which she liked a lot - she wiggled even a bit with her wing after the meal.

Her poops are still awful but the colour has changed a bit from mushy dark green to lighter green. Her abdomen does not seem to be so swollen any more. So I take this as a good sign. Currently she is perching on her belly in a quite relaxed mode - so I assume that she does not have so much pain any more and that the medicine is working.

I pray that she is recovering soon.

That sounds pretty good. The Baytril should be working.
On another not you know if she had it once she can have it again, so you will have to watch her. Also after she is well you can give her additional calcium twice a week and a multivitamin for bids if you can find.

Reti

Hi Petra,

I'm so sorry Emma has been unwell. In a way, what happened to her has a lot in common with the emergencies I had with Piper and Halo.
The antibiotic, the warmth and the Flagyl will be making her fell much better. It's excellent that she has a good appetite.
Wishing Emma a full and speedy recovery!

I am sorry that I did not update earlier on Emma but I became very sick myself - Noro virus - that knocked me down for a while.

But I have good news: After treating Emma for a week with Baytril and keeping her in a hospital box for the time I left her out again last Sunday. The last 4 days while she was still inside I gave her Calcivet in the evening to build up her calcium levels again. I also treated her with the pro-biotic Bene Bac during this week to help her digestive tract to become normal again.
Closely watching her for the whole week I can say that she fully recovered, cuddling with her beloved Lucky again, making perfect poops and fighting off the unwanted guests from HER balcony. Emma is her old self again.

I think that the problem with the eggs was only secondary and no real Peritonitis - I remembered that a little while ago stupid little Emily had sat on the thick moss on the roof top of her nest for a longer time - she likes it so much - and that moss was wet from the rain. So I think she simply got an infection of her abdominal organ that spread to the oviduct and from there to the forming eggs - like a person who gets a bad bladder infection from wearing wet clothes etc. Wet surfaces are never good for birds nor for humans!!! My explanation for her amazingly quick recovery.

She was btw an excellent patient - she vomitted only once on the 3rd day she was in when I got very worried because when I checked her in the very early morning - because I could not sleep really during the whole night - the whole box was full of old seed - stuff she had eaten DAYS before. But - clever bird she is - she only got rid of all the stuff which disturbed her - a cleaning action if you like. From that day on she got remarkably better, her poops started to increase which told me that her digestion was working again and the de-frosted peas did their job of course.

I now wonder when she is going to lay eggs again and how they look like. I pray that everything will be okay...

It's great to know that Emma is herself again!

I really need to research more into the whole egg laying process, because I read that egg yolks are 'captured' by the oviduct (from where?) and as they descend the egg white and the shell start to form around each one. The onset of egg yolk peritonitis was caused by the yolk not being 'captured' into the oviduct at all, but falling into the abdominal cavity instead and staying there, effectively rotting and causing a horrible infection that spreads from the diaphragm area to the whole peritoneum.

The article I'd found on the necropsy of a fatal case of egg retention showed that trauma to the diafragm area was a major cause of egg retention and peritonitis. This seems indeed to be the case with my Halo, found with serious injuries.
In other cases, it appears to be related to age, in that many cases of egg binding happened to hens nearing the end of their laying capability.

Emma may indeed have got a yeast infection from sittoing on the wet moss, but it's possible that would have happened because the Candida had something to feed on, namely leaking egg contents.

Canker has come a long way since the days of easily identifiable yellow caseous nodules. More recent vet papers talk about much more virulent strains, requiring much stronger doses of meds, showing very subtle symptoms, which may include very small off-white lesions that look likr hard plastic. Fortunately Flagyl is still one of the most effective drugs to combat them.

I would say that the episode when Emma was sick was a confirmation of the presence of canker obstructions. Expelling the larger seeds avoided sour crop and must have made her feel very relieved. Then the meds together with the soft food sorted the problem and allowed her to get enough nourishment.

Thank you so much Teresa for your very interesting answer. I agree that there might not have been a single reason for Emma's problems - but how can we know for sure?

I am at least glad that she is very well doing.
Here are some photos of her and how she and Lucky love to sit on that moss together:

What wonderful photos!!! Their colours and iridescence, especially in the first two, are AMAZING! Such a lovely couple...

Thank you so much Teresa - yes they are a lovely couple. Pete has looked for the right mate for his wife before he went over the rainbow.