Changes in comb

[Shamiira]

Hi all! This is my Easter Egger (black copper Maran cross) Hei Hei who is about 2.5 years old. She stopped laying eggs over the winter except for a few random super soft shelled eggs and hasn’t laid any eggs at all in a few months. They have free access to grower and layer food, oyster shell, egg shell and grit. Now her comb has flopped over, has some swelling at the very back of the comb where it connects to her head and just generally doesn’t look quite right. It’s got some darker spotting and seems dry. I couldn’t catch it in the photos but she also has quite thin like skin tags growing out of her comb too. Nothing seems to match what the internet says but curious if anyone had any thoughts here. Thanks in advance for any knowledge you all may have!

 

[Eggcessive]

The black marking on her comb may be due to wire fencing if she is trying to get away from another chicken. Her comb looks dry probably since she is not laying. The soft shell eggs last winter may have been due to a reproductive disorder common to older hens. Is she starting to molt at all?

 

[Shamiira]

The black marking on her comb may be due to wire fencing if she is trying to get away from another chicken. Her comb looks dry probably since she is not laying. The soft shell eggs last winter may have been due to a reproductive disorder common to older hens. Is she starting to molt at all?

Our chickens free range the backyard and are only fenced out of the sunflower garden. She is pretty high in the pecking order; no one picks on her but we did raise their roosting bars and she had some trouble the first 2 nights getting to where she wanted so maybe that’s where the darker spots and swelling are from. I hadn’t connected that! She isn’t molting.

She molted over the winter except for her tail feathers. She then waited until mid spring to molt her tail feathers. She’s a slow molter and hasn’t had a hard molt.