Bella recovering well from ?Infectious bronchitis? - update: new pics!

[caralouise1974]

Update: she laid an absolutely monster egg this morning and looked even messier under her vent. I was considering bathing her (and dreading it, as she's such a feisty little terror!) when this happened...

How sweet! They preened each other and chucked dust over each other for about an hour!

And now she looks like this...

So, she's saved me a job! I'm going to monitor the redness of her skin under there over the next few days, but I do think that now it is dry, it'll probably help to soothe the irritation.

And the belly swelling seems no bigger today, so that's a relief.

 

[Cetawin]

That was probably the big bulge you saw...a huge egg waiting to be laid. Just keep an eye on her. She is a beautiful girl though.

 

[caralouise1974]

Thank you Cetawin - we think she's a real madam - she carries herself so high, on those long legs of hers, she looks like a total superstar, but then she turns around and there's that horrible dirty sticky pink bottom!

I watched her do a few rather moist poops today (and the feathers are already filthy again!), so I'm going to try completely removing all greens from her diet for a couple of days, just in case it's simply the runny poop that's making all this mess on her behind. She's a glutton with cherry tomatoes, but I suspect they are rather acidic and watery and causing her poop to be a bit too loose. She doesn't seem to drop her tail feathers far enough when she poops either, so the poop hits them before dropping to the ground.

Dirty girl!

 

[speckledhen]

This is good news! Glad she got that big egg out of there!

 

[caralouise1974]

Thanks speckledhen - I'm glad she doesn't appear to have anything too wrong with her anyway. I do think she looks a bit sore and stretched around there still, so I'll keep an eye on her.

The big egg doesn't seem to have helped bring the abdominal swelling down, but it certainly seems not to have gotten any bigger since yesterday - which is the main thing I suppose.

This roundness may well be normal for her though, as you suggested... so perhaps she's just a rather bootilicious little madam!

 

[speckledhen]

I have some "bell-bottomed ladies" myself, especially my Blue Orpingtons.

 

[caralouise1974]

Quote:

Sweet!

 

[FarmerDenise]

I frequently bathe my chickens, if they are dirty. If it is too cold out, I dry them off with a hairdryer on low. Some of them just love it and turn themselves this way and that. It takes about 45 minutes or so to dry them this way. I usually keep them in the house overnight to make sure that they don't get chilled. Of course in the summertime, they are fine going back outside right away since it is hot. Most of my chickens love a nice warm bath, they just relax into it.

 

[caralouise1974]

I think I'm going to have my work cut out on a daily basis if I intend to keep Bella clean with a bathing regime - I just went out and there's a membrane-only (no shell) egg in the middle of the coop, surrounded by rather runny (totally normal coloured though) poop and her feathers look worse than ever. Absolutely soaking wet underneath her tummy and beneath her vent.

The egg itself has a thick membrane, but I am pretty certain it is not broken, as when I pick it up and hold it at arms length, nothing seeps out... however, there is definitiely egg yolk on the outside of it, and there is also yolk on the inside on the floor of the coop. It's like she's laid a shell-less egg, and also laid a bit of extra yolk along with it. Is this because she's only been laying for a few weeks and is still practicing? She never misses a day, although we do seem to be getting quite a lot of soft-shells from her (in runs of twos and threes, then back to normal ones for a few days).

(And it's funny, I always find her shell-less eggs in the middle of the coop, but the proper shelled ones are always in the nestbox.)

She's her normal self today though and appears not to be any the worse for it. Running up to greet me, eating treats like she hasn't been fed for a week, clucking loudly in disgust when I walk away.

Any ideas anyone?

 

[caralouise1974]

I've done a bit of reading - I now have a horrible feeling that at some point she must've had one of these soft shelled eggs implode inside her, and the yolk and white has flooded her abdomen. Hence the very watery discharge and the extra yolk all over the outside of these leathery eggs.

Funny, the fully-shelled eggs always come out looking clean and dry, with not a hint of yolkiness in sight (her feathers are always soaking after laying though, regardless of the presence or absence of a fully formed shell).

I do hope she's not doing that awful internal laying thing. Cause that's game over isn't it?