Blood on my eggs ???

[wordgirl]

Well, the last three days or so I've been getting an egg with a minimal amount of blood on it. Today the blood was on a few of them, though maybe it originally was on just one, and it got on the others? One of the Australorp's comb was bleeding today, so maybe it got on them as she was tucking them under herself.

Is a little blood on eggs normal? It looks a little scary.

 

[emzee]

I've had blood on my eggs before, and when I researched it I read that blood can appear on the eggs when the hen had to strain extra hard. Where your eggs bigger than normal?

 

[gritsar]

I wouldn't worry about a little blood on the eggshell. It happens from time to time. I would worry about your hen's bleeding comb. Chickens can turn cannibal in a heartbeat. If there's noticeable blood, it may be best to seperate her until her comb heals. Either that or slather her comb in pine tar, careful not to use too much that it could run in her eyes. That will deter anyone from pecking at it and help it heal.

 

[wordgirl]

Quote:
Yes – she's in the Hurt-Chicken-Crate beside the coop right now. Our hens are horrible at leaving little cuts alone – especially when it comes to the rooster. He WILL NOT defend himself, and I have to separate him more than anyone else.

I mean, I guess it is sort of good – he won't hurt the hens, but....

 

[wordgirl]

All right – thank you. I was thinking it was probably okay, but I just wanted to make sure!

 

[cruelas01]

One of my hens was acting strange and had a bloody sore on her back. I checked a couple times yesterday to see what was going on and I caught another hen eating the flesh off her wound. It appears that some hens are pecking others to the point that they are eating living flesh. Is this common? What can be done to prevent it? Do I have too many hens?

I isolated the injured hen to see if she recovers before returning her. But several other hens are missing feathers above their tails. I thought this was caused by the roosters (I let the hens out of their house a couple hours per day and there are wild roosters that come to my property every day that take care of the hens and escort them around. But now I wonder if the damage is being caused by other hens.

My coop is about 12' x 12' and has 12 nesting boxes and I have 12 hens. Most of the time they are confined to the coop (I have had trouble with dogs killing hens on my property so I don't let them come in and out all the time). There are wild hens and roosters all over our neighbor hood and they gather at my place for free food (I would like to eradicate them but not sure how right now.

After chatting with another chicken person I decided to let my hens out of the coop a few hours a day when I am home so I can watch for the neighbors dogs. They like the extra bugs and time out, but return to the coop in the evening.

I am wondering if they are pecking each other because the coop is too small for 12? Or do I need to figure out who the pecker is and eliminate them? The one I caught pecking this hen lays the best eggs of the bunch, so I hate to get rid of her. She lays very large bright sky blue eggs.

Any suggestions?

Candy

 

[Qi Chicken]

Candy, You should post this as a separate post in the chicken disease section, I think you'd get a lot of help! I do think your coop is Plenty big. You have 144 square feet. At 4 square feet per hen you could fit many more in there.

Probably the bare spots are caused by the rooster and for some reason that particular hen got a sore. Once the other chickens see it they will peck it (her) to death. (maybe literally

It's not the fault really of the worst pecker, it's just what chickens do when there is a wound. You should separate the hurt hen and put bluekot on the sore. Hens will peck at red things, the bluekot will disguise the sore and will help it heal but I wouldn't put her back in right away. I would wait until it was getting a lot better. If you have a chicken saddle around you could put one of those on her??

Good luck with her. You could also put antibiotic ointment on there (neosporin) if she is not going to be with the other hens.

 

[cruelas01]

Thank you so much. I'll look for the blue stuff at my feed store. I could not figure out how to post a new item.... maybe user error? I checked around the website and had posted a new string some months ago, but could not figure out how to do it today...

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
Here ya go, there's lots of info. here about starting your own thread and other BYC features:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AWXAmgx4qOPEZDV0NDNqNl8xMGRnOXpmc2Ri&hl=en