Buff Orpington laid either a shell-less egg or had an egg break inside her

[NormaEstrella]

Hello there - this is my first time posting to this forum, and I hope I can get some insight on what's happening with my beloved chicken.

Taloulah is a Buff Orpington, one year old, who just today passed a strange looking rubbery white thing (about the size of a grub, but definitely NOT a grub) and then a minute later passed a broken yolk and white. I'm hoping this is a shell-less egg and that grublike tubular thing was a misplaced membrane. I originally began watching her just minutes before this episode because she didn't seem to have the bright eyes and curiosity about her like normal. She's a bit fluffed up and more withdrawn than usual and has moved into the nesting box and has been there since.

I brought her inside briefly to wash her vent with a warm washcloth, and I also stuck an oiled, gloved finger into her vent to see if there were any broken shell pieces to be found. She made a small poop while I had my finger inside of her and made some noises of discomfort, but I felt nothing in her cavity. She doesn't appear to have a swollen abdomen and she ate a little bit of the yogurt/flax seed mixture I bribed her with.

Her and the other chickens are on an organic layer feed and I provide them with calcium carbonate grit (or limestone grit? I got it from a bulk bin and can't remember) next to their feed (not mixed in with it). Their water is fresh and their bedding is fairly clean (nesting boxes are always clean). They roam around the yard during the day, eating bugs and grass. They have never been dewormed, but I tried giving them some fresh garlic earlier today.

The past few weeks I've noticed that every once in a while I'll get an egg that seems to have its yolk already broken when I crack it into a pan to fry. Now I'm suspecting these eggs are coming from Taloulah.

Any insight into this problem would be so very appreciated. I lost my beloved Black Star Sex-Link, Norma Jean Estrella, last month and I would be devastated to lose another chicken. Thank you!

 

[ChicKat]

Welcome to the forum. NormaEstrella,


So sorry to hear you lost your sexlink. Sorry about your BO too. Hopefully your first post will get some attention from BYC experts.

You may want to get some vitamins for the chickens, and hopefully this is just a passing thing.
Keep a close eye on her, and if she remains fluffed up and seems to be behaving differently, consider posting in the Emergencies diseases and cures forum too. Maybe folks who hang out there would have some ideas. I hope she is better tomorrow.

 

[NormaEstrella]

Thank you so much, ChicKat! I do have some vitamin/electrolight mix and I put some in their water this A.M. Hopefully she'll be brighter in the morning.

 

[ChicKat]

Hope so---- post to update so I can cheer her on. :O)

 

[NormaEstrella]

Well, she's still with us this morning, thank goodness! She doesn't want to come out of the coop though, and she's moving slowly. Right now she's in the nesting box again, and she's still a bit fluffed up.

I'm wondering if I should give her some liquid calcium, as I've seen that recommended on other threads for egg binding (in that it helps to stimulate the oviduct and move an egg along). Any thoughts on that, anyone? I've also read about aspirin reducing inflammation around a stuck egg, though I'm still not sure what's specifically wrong with my girl.

 

[NormaEstrella]

Taloulah seems healthy enough now, but she's still displaying some odd behavior. Yesterday (the day after the egg incident), she finally came out of the coop and started scratching about with the other chickens and looked fine until about 4pm when she got fluffy again and stopped moving around the yard. I brought her in and had her sit in some warm water for about 15 minutes while I massaged her abdomen, then I dried her off and put her back outside (and she seemed back to her normal self again). Yesterday she did not lay an egg.

Today she's perky and normal except that she laid down in the yard for a while and started pumping her tail, with no results. There has not been an egg from her since 3/30 (Friday), and that was the broken/shell-less egg. Could it be that she's "stressed" enough to not lay an egg for a couple days? Or should I now be concerned with internal laying? I've felt her bottom up quite thoroughly and there's no sign of her being egg bound.

 

[ChicKat]

I don't have lots of experience with this---except, my EE seemed to have laid a shell-less one day, took a couple of days off--and then went back to an egg-a-day. So it could be part of a normal cycle.

Hope she continues to do well. It is so easy to really worry about the chickens (I know I do sometimes and that can be confirmed by my dh)--- but usually everything is fine. Hope that Taloula lays normally from now on and all is well. It kind of sounds like she was just taking a normal break.