Hello Chicken Community!
I have an ISA Brown, around 15 months old who has been consistently laying soft shelled eggs for 3 days, sometimes 2 a day. Prior to that, she was laying smaller than usual, calcium spotted eggs, and one egg that had a large ring around the middle, which i think is called a body-check egg. She has plenty of oyster shell in the run, and I've been giving her plain yogurt to help the calcium, but it doesn't seem to be making a difference.
The environment has been stressful for her: we lost a flock member about a month ago to a bound egg, it's been a very hot summer in NJ, we were hard hit by the tropical storm on Tuesday, and had a generator wailing only about 100 feet from her cage for 4 days, so we assumed maybe she was just having a hard time due to the heat and the stress. I brought her inside for a night after she was listless and having diarrhea, and we gave her electrolytes and let her spend a night in the air conditioning. She perked up and acted normally, so we put her back with the flock (I have 2 other chickens). That morning we got the body checked egg. Since then, she's only laid soft shells - I got two from her this morning: a very small shriveled egg, and then a soft shell that was broken in the nest box.
I did give her pedialyte two times yesterday because she looked very droopy, and have been administering a natural dewormer supplement, and putting diatomaceous earth in the run for all the chickens.
She acts normally most of the time, eating, drinking, scratching, wandering the yard. But she gets a little droopy in the evenings. The birds got very wet during the tropical storm before I was able to get them inside, and I'm concerned she might have gotten a respiratory infection, although there's no mucus in the eyes/nose and no coughing. The other two birds (also ISA Browns) have been laying normally the whole time and seem unaffected, so I'm at a loss as to what might be wrong with the one.
This is my first year with adult chickens, and since we lost the one a month ago, I've been very worried about the remaining 3. Any advice is appreciated! Sorry for the very long post.
I have an ISA Brown, around 15 months old who has been consistently laying soft shelled eggs for 3 days, sometimes 2 a day. Prior to that, she was laying smaller than usual, calcium spotted eggs, and one egg that had a large ring around the middle, which i think is called a body-check egg. She has plenty of oyster shell in the run, and I've been giving her plain yogurt to help the calcium, but it doesn't seem to be making a difference.
The environment has been stressful for her: we lost a flock member about a month ago to a bound egg, it's been a very hot summer in NJ, we were hard hit by the tropical storm on Tuesday, and had a generator wailing only about 100 feet from her cage for 4 days, so we assumed maybe she was just having a hard time due to the heat and the stress. I brought her inside for a night after she was listless and having diarrhea, and we gave her electrolytes and let her spend a night in the air conditioning. She perked up and acted normally, so we put her back with the flock (I have 2 other chickens). That morning we got the body checked egg. Since then, she's only laid soft shells - I got two from her this morning: a very small shriveled egg, and then a soft shell that was broken in the nest box.
I did give her pedialyte two times yesterday because she looked very droopy, and have been administering a natural dewormer supplement, and putting diatomaceous earth in the run for all the chickens.
She acts normally most of the time, eating, drinking, scratching, wandering the yard. But she gets a little droopy in the evenings. The birds got very wet during the tropical storm before I was able to get them inside, and I'm concerned she might have gotten a respiratory infection, although there's no mucus in the eyes/nose and no coughing. The other two birds (also ISA Browns) have been laying normally the whole time and seem unaffected, so I'm at a loss as to what might be wrong with the one.
This is my first year with adult chickens, and since we lost the one a month ago, I've been very worried about the remaining 3. Any advice is appreciated! Sorry for the very long post.
