18 week new layer issues

MandBducks

Songster
5 Years
Apr 18, 2016
164
110
141
1) What type of bird , age and weight (does the chicken seem or feel lighter or thinner than the others.)
18 week Midnight Majesty Maran, thin due to recent growth spurt and heat I think (AZ weather has been brutal)
2) What is the behavior, exactly.
Monday noticed she was standing in the water dish not moving, disinterested. She was still eating that night and relatively alert. Quickly located a soft shell egg that was stuck. Warm bath, lube, calcium pills, and then ultimately ER vet who removed the egg. Tuesday morning I got her to eat some food but by the afternoon she was disinterested in treats and panting intermittently. Started her on doxycycline Tuesday Evening
Wednesday morning she is still pretty lethargic, disinterested in food, stool is now loose and mostly urates although I did feel some food in her crop. Picking up supplies to tube feed from the vet this evening
3) How long has the bird been exhibiting symptoms?
Monday mid afternoon
4) Are other birds exhibiting the same symptoms?
No
5) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma.
No
6) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation.
Egg binding on Monday, removed by vet. I feel no other eggs but her vent is pulsating and she has her tail tucked. No penguin stance.
7) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all.
Drinking intermittently. Pecking at feed but stopped today
8) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc.
Runny today
9) What has been the treatment you have administered so far?
Doxycycline started, ER vet removed soft shelled egg, starting tube feeding tonight. Rooster booster in water
10 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet?
Have done both
11) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help.
See above
12) Describe the housing/bedding in use
Currently in crate in house
 
Are you continuing the calcium tablets, one per day? This is important because she could have another egg stuck. More often than anyone realizes, two eggs are involved in egg binding.

The continued calcium supplement will encourage strong contractions to help expel the egg if there's one stuck inside.

This ordeal can dehydrate a chicken making egg binding even worse. She should drink eagerly on her own if she's very thirsty. If she doesn't drink, you will need to syringe it.
 
I have been continuing calcium supplements. On Monday evening she ate a whole crushed egg shell on her own. Yesterday she wasn’t interested so I mixed calcium powder with water and syringed it that way. She was drinking yesterday and this am but I plan to syringe some extra water in with her dinner tonight when I start tube feeding. I can’t feel another egg yet and have been checking. It worries me that today will be going on two days if there is another egg involved.
 
In the years I've been dealing with egg bound hens, I have never been able to feel the egg. It really needs to be at the vent to feel it's there. A shell-less egg is even more difficult to detect. So do not assume there is no egg stuck just because you can't feel it.

The egg binding I've experienced with my hens has almost always involed two eggs being released down the reproductive tract at nearly the same time. One may get a shell while the other remains shell-less. It sets up a lot of pain and it involves the slowing down of the digestive processes also in many cases, compounding the grief.

Look at the calcium powder you've been giving the hen. It needs to be at the very minimum 500mg per dose. I use people calcium tablets since they come in the hefty dose that a hen in reproductive distress requires.
 
Thank you so much! They are 600mg tabs. I was just feeling her crop and it is full.... which is interesting because last I saw her eat was yesterday. Now I’m wondering about impacted crop too
 
Just found this... is this a lash egg!?
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Updating, this morning she seems more alert. I did tube feed her the medicated food and some extra calcium last night. She woke up this morning, ate some meal worms and some food. I let her out with her friends for a supervised visit and she ate some scratch with them. She’s back inside, I did another small dose of tube feeding and meds. Hopefully by this evening she is alert and stable enough to go to sleep with them.
 

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