Hen caught eating silicone sealant: what will it do to her?

[Icemaiden]

I spotted one of the girls today being chased by the others, with an approx. 8" length of what turned out to be silicone / mastic sealant in her beak. One of the others managed to get 3 - 4" of it off her, but she ate the rest before I could catch her. I caught the other hen & extricated the sealant from her, which enabled me to find out what it was. (No idea where Nadia got it from; I guess I'll find out when something starts to leak...)

I'm concerned as to the effect of eating 4 - 5" of old sealant. Will it break up in her crop? Will she get an impacted crop? Will it poison her as it breaks down? Or will it pass through undigested?

 

[Marigold]

I wouldn't worry too much, just keep an eye on her. At least, if trouble does ensue, you'll know what was the cause, which would have been a mystery if you hadn't caught them at it. I should think that old sealant was pretty inert, and so long as it clears through her crop it may well just emerge in a similar state to what went in (for somebody else to eat?....)
Our previous dog used to hoover up those big brown runner bands the postmen drop on the pavements. They always emerged intact, but it did look as if he had a terrible case of tapeworms.
Do keep us informed, we will all be on the edge of our perches.

 

[chrismahon]

Our hens ate all the foam heat insulation from the polytunnel frames Icemaiden. I only realised when I saw one head for the area immediately after being released from the run. Then I saw there was hardly any foam left and that's a lot of foam! We had no problems. The Silicone may lodge in the crop, it may stick in the gizzard or anywhere else in the digestive system. Or it may just pass straight through hopefully. It is inert so she won't be poisoned. Guess you need to keep a close eye on her and her poo. There is nothing you can do to help her now, but I'd be looking for where the Silicone came from in case there is any more. It is sometimes used to seal gaps in the coop walls.

 

[Icemaiden]

Thanks for the reassurance. She had a couple of days off laying, but is now laying again, & seems OK at the mo. She went to bed with a fairly empty crop that evening, so I guess she was off her food a bit. No sign of the sealant in her poo, unless as Marigold suggested, it's been eaten again 07

There's no sealant in the coop, Chris; it's a Smiths' Sectional Midi Dell, with nooks and crannies rather than sealant (hence my copious use of diatom).
The girls were wandering around the garden at the time, so I'm expecting a leak from an external grey water pipe in the near future, probably from our bathroom plumbing, as most of the drainage is external. Time will tell...

 

[chrismahon]

Gale Dumelow warns of the dangers of leaving indigestible stuff lying around in her book Icemaiden. She says, if I remember correctly, the biggest cause of gizzard impaction is cigarette ends. In my experience it is damson stones. I've been worried here with all the cherries falling off the trees that some will eat them whole. But so far none have been that greedy and have peeled the flesh off leaving the stone on the floor.

 

[Marigold]

I'm having the same problem with our puppy, who finds all sorts of stuff in the garden and then wants to chew it. She's busy eating the plastic fencing on the stations of my husband's model railway, which isn't very popular. Yesterday I recovered and hid a chewed-up tiny little fire bucket, and she's also finding bits of plastic, screws etc hidden to the human eye in the gravel outside the back door, left over from last year's kitchen makeover. Thank goodness the hens are shut in in their nice safe run!

 

[Icemaiden]

In my defence Chris, I'm pretty sure that the sealant was attached to something plumbing related (a downpipe, waste pipe, guttering or whatever) until Nadia spotted it... 09

 

[chrismahon]

Fingers crossed Nadia will be OK Icemaiden. Keep watching her pooing. If she is normal now the chances are it has gone through without problem. Ours eat a lot of grass which comes out matted together in 6" lengths- probably about the diameter of the piece Silicone you describe. Our heat foam on the polytunnel was stuck on. It only took them 2 days to eat it all which I had to replace. In volume the replacement foam is about the same size as a 2.5 litre tin of paint. I have absolutely no idea how they processed it but none ofd the white foam was ever evident in their poos.

Guess you perhaps need to look for a plumbing leak now. It may also be used to seal window or door frames to brickwork and guttering sections together.