sick chicken - problem with vent

[title town chickens]

I've had one of my hens drop eggs outside of the nest box the last couple days. All the girls go nuts as they eat the shell. Today we heard a lot of noise from the coop. There was a smashed egg and they were attacking one of the hens vents. The attacked hen eventually made her way into a corner where she couldn't be attacked. Inspection of her vent showed some bleeding (I assume from the attack), a loss of feathers, and many of the feathers covered with what may be diarrhea and possibly egg. I removed the hen and cleaned her tail by soaking in warm water. Very hard to remove the dried waste from the tail. She is very lethargic and I have separated her from the flock. No interest in food or water the rest of the day. The sick hen appeared fine yesterday.

What does she have? What do I do?

The plot thickens, or should I say thins. This morning I found my isolated girl with a soft shelled egg on the ground (in-tact) and eating another egg on the ground and she still had half of the soft shell sticking out of her vent. Vent area was again covered with what I think is a mix of egg and waste. That's 2 soft shelled eggs over night. I would guess egg-bound but we haven't seen a drop off in production. This is easy to track since I only have 4 birds. I now think I understand why the other girls were picking at her vent. If there was soft shell hanging there, they were trying to eat it.

Why would I get 2 eggs so quick? Super chicken? Why the soft shells? How do I fix?

 

[Chickiemom25]

i may have a girl with the same problem. She has been laying soft eggs. has alot of missing feathers/fluff on her bum. and today didnt want to come out of the coop.

anxious to hear what others have to say,

 

[leadwolf1]

I think that your hen may be suffering from shock from the attack. I would put her in a quiet, darkened, cool place to recuperate.

What worries me more is that they attacked her in the first place.

Here are my thoughts and again, it is only my thoughts...I believe that they have gotten used to eating the eggs that are being layed outside the box. Being the pigs that we all know chickens can be, they attacked her while she was still laying the egg...each wanting to be the first to get a taste. That poor thing couldn't get away because she was in the middle of laying her egg. I don't know how to stop them unless you keep the one isolated for several days after she begins laying again or, checking the coop often and protecting her while she lays. You may need to rehome her just so that they don't kill her.

Chickiemom...I would try adding more calcium to your girls diet and more protein in the form of scrambled egg, mealworms, cooked chicken livers, etc. For added calcium, I would make sure that she has plenty of free choice oyster shell. Some poly vi sol, without iron, .5mls per day wouldn't hurt.

 

[Chickiemom25]

Chickiemom...I would try adding more calcium to your girls diet and more protein in the form of scrambled egg, mealworms, cooked chicken livers, etc. For added calcium, I would make sure that she has plenty of free choice oyster shell. Some poly vi sol, without iron, .5mls per day wouldn't hurt.

Unfortunatley I have added crushed shells and the girls get a fair amount of meat. All other hens were laying fine. I say were because we had an unexplained death of my oldest ( 18 mo) girl last night).

 

[terryg]

It would be best for this girl to stop laying so that she can heal.You can put her in a dog crate and darken it for all but 6 hours a day. That gives her enough time to eat and drink, but signals to her to stop laying. If her vent area looks at all infected I'd give her a broad-sprectrum antibiotic in the water. If you think that she has prolapsed (that's when part of the repro tract comes out with the egg and doesn't go back in - a prime target for picking - then read what I did for my prolapsed hen here: http://hencam.com/henblog/2007/07/folk-medicine-cure/
(BTW, I still have that hen and she still lays eggs 5 years later.)