I have an almost 2 year Bovan Brown production chicken who had a problem laying soft shelled eggs, shell-less eggs and parts of soft egg shells last November, 2014. Now for the last 10 days she had had several crushed eggs in the nest box and today just a yolk. (She did have a couple typical eggs in between the crushed eggs when I loaded up everything the chickens ate with oyster shells, but one of the other hens started laying whitish colored eggs (normally a nice brown), which I knew meant she was getting too much calcium.
Back to the emergency today . . . because she was standing in a corner and not eating or drinking shortly after laying just the yolk early this morning, I gave her a warm bath and probed her and removed what looked like an entire soft shell. I have her isolated. I blow dried her and she had eaten a little yogurt and some oyster shells. However, she is still standing still with her eyes closed most of the time. The small animal vet on call advised me about the warm bath and the probing and also said I could start sulfadimethoxine from a local farm store that I would mix with water according to package directions. However, I've found online to never give this antibiotic to laying chickens. She warned that there would be a withdrawal period, and that's fine with me. She said to keep the chicken isolated and drinking the antibiotic in the water for several weeks (maybe 3 to 4 if I remember right).
Does anyone see a problem with this advice? I'm about to head out to get the antibiotic but thought I'd check with the forum.
Back to the emergency today . . . because she was standing in a corner and not eating or drinking shortly after laying just the yolk early this morning, I gave her a warm bath and probed her and removed what looked like an entire soft shell. I have her isolated. I blow dried her and she had eaten a little yogurt and some oyster shells. However, she is still standing still with her eyes closed most of the time. The small animal vet on call advised me about the warm bath and the probing and also said I could start sulfadimethoxine from a local farm store that I would mix with water according to package directions. However, I've found online to never give this antibiotic to laying chickens. She warned that there would be a withdrawal period, and that's fine with me. She said to keep the chicken isolated and drinking the antibiotic in the water for several weeks (maybe 3 to 4 if I remember right).
Does anyone see a problem with this advice? I'm about to head out to get the antibiotic but thought I'd check with the forum.
