Any Diagnosis Help? - Outside vent is dirty, a little blood. Egg laid this morning has "extra" shell

[JJ jogging]

Anyone see this before? Our best layer, a 2 year old Red Star named Rover, is acting okay today. She is at the top of the pecking order and seems to have lots of energy.

I got a warm egg of hers out of the nesting box this morning. The egg itself seems fine, but it had a tiny bit of blood and an odd gooey looking substance on it. Plus, attached to the goo is what looks like maybe a soft piece of egg shell:




(Disregard the wood chips - that's what I line my nesting box with)

So I went to look at the girl, and her vent is all wet looking, saw a little trickle of blood, and some white. I did not smell any odors. She seemed sensitive when I gently touched the feathers to get a better look. But her bossy attitude is intact and energy level seems fine.

In any case, what is it?? How do we treat? Poor thing.

 

[Eggcessive]

Welcome to BYC. It looks like she laid a normal egg and an egg broke inside, coming out with only the soft shell and membrane intact. I would clean her vent area, and take a rubber glove, insert a finger into the vent, and fish around for any more membrane or egg shell. This will help in case anything is left inside to cut her or cause infection. I would give her some calcium, either a Tums, calcium tablet crushed , or oyster shell, in case she is having soft shell eggs because of that. Eggs are supposed to come about every 26 hours or longer, but sometimes the plumbing can get out of whack, and rarely multiple eggs can be laid if there has been a backup.