Chicken has diarrhea, lethargic, and laying eggs without shells

[Eggcessive]

Can you get any antibiotics from your agricultural or farm store? If you have plain Greek yogurt, you can give her a teaspoonful or 5 grams daily for some probiotics. That might help some. Reproductive disorders are very common in laying hens and one of the most common causes of death. I have had hens who had soft or even broken eggs, and they have lived for a year or so until they died from apparent egg yolk peritonitis or related problems. Hopefully, your hen will get better soon.

 

[LoveMyChickenBabies]

Can you get any antibiotics from your agricultural or farm store? If you have plain Greek yogurt, you can give her a teaspoonful or 5 grams daily for some probiotics. That might help some. Reproductive disorders are very common in laying hens and one of the most common causes of death. I have had hens who had soft or even broken eggs, and they have lived for a year or so until they died from apparent egg yolk peritonitis or related problems. Hopefully, your hen will get better soon.

X2

 

[micstrachan]

She is absolutely precious! Let us know how the calcium therapy goes. Do you think you will you try antibiotics?

 

[Britta3]

I will enquire about antibiotics from an agricultural store/or vet as soon as possible.
If I can get a hold of antibiotics to clear up any infection, and treat the cause of the shell-less eggs (with calcium and vitamin d supplement), then I am thinking that may give the poor girl a good chance at recovery.

She has just excreted what appears to be a very dry, shell-less egg. I will post a photo of this in a moment.

Thank you all so much for your advice - I feel that I am hopefully now on the right path to understanding what is going on and to help her properly. Will keep you posted.

 

[Britta3]

As per my previous post, this is what she just excreted after she got up on the ledge to roost for the night. It looks to be a dry, shell-less egg. This is the 3rd shell-less egg she has laid in a week. The other two were in the nesting area, and were not dry like this one.

 

[Eggcessive]

That one looks like a membrane of a shell-less egg that either was empty or which could have broken. When there is something going on in the oviduct, you may see pieces of membrane, egg whites or yolk, and sometimes with salpingitis, there might be fleshy-looking pieces of tissue, called lash eggs. Baytril which is banned for poultry in the US, but used in other countries and for other animals in the US, is available online if you wish to try it for her problems. To help you learn about some of the various laying problems, here are some articles to read:

http://www.chickenvet.co.uk/health-and-common-diseases/egg-laying-issues/index.aspx

http://www.scoopfromthecoop.com/laying-issues-internal-layers-and-peritonitis/

http://www.poultrydvm.com/condition/internal-layer

http://www.theveterinaryexpert.com/backyard-poultry/egg-yolk-peritonitis/

 

[Eggcessive]

In this thread, you can find where to buy Baytril and in post 3, how much to give:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/baytril-enrofloxacin-sources.959119/

The dosage seems to be 5 mg per pound or 10mg per Kg daily for 5 days. Many say to give the injectable or oral form orally, and not diluted in water to make sure the correct dosage is given. Here is another thread with info:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/enrofloxacin-dosage.1187174/

Amoxicillin or Fish Mox online can be used as well if you don’t have Baytril. There are egg withdrawal times with amoxicillin, but with Baytril, the eggs are not supposed to be eaten ever. Many of these hens never lay normal eggs again, but usually a month would be a sufficient egg withdrawal time for most drugs.