Could this be EDS?

[AlanOfTheBerg]

My second post is a problem/question!

To-the-point: I have a RIR who is a little over a year old. Her current symptom/problem is laying shelless eggs. She had been laying membrane-only eggs, but lately it has been completely without a shell. I believe this has been going on for a weeks now.

The backstory: (I've tried to write everything I can think that would be relevant. Sorry it's so long!)

During the winter, our flock of 14 (5 buffs, 5 BRs and 4 RIRs, all under 2 years old), got real bored and almost every chicken lost a significant amount of feathers, primarily on the back, but also tail feathers, rear end, and lower chest, between the legs. It could have been a couple aggressive troublemakers, or everyone could have been doing it to each other. We're not really sure. We made some coop changes, gave everyone a DE dust bath, stepped up coop cleaning and dusting with DE, treated everyone with both Blu Kote and Pick-no-more lotion, and made everyone wear peepers. Now, a couple months later, almost all the chickens are back to what I'd call normal from a feather POV.​

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During the last couple of months, I also started watching them more closely. A few chickens were having very runny poop, likely diarrhea, that you could hear come squirting out and splatting on the sand if you were nearby. We stopped giving them any kind of treat like scratch, mealworms, etc. The only non-feed items they still may get are broccoli stems, leftover lettuce and greens, apple peels. Their feed is Bar Ale OG corn/soy-free 18% layer pellets.​

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One of the hens, the RIR, I noticed was not growing feathers back like her friends. Where you'd usually see very small black dots on the skin where a new feather was starting to re-grow, she had very very few of these, and the ones she did have were small. I'd also find that some of the pins would occasionally have blood at the tip, telling me it was recently nibbled at. She was without body feathers from her mid-back around to her belly. She did have tail feathers. With everyone wearing peepers, it seems that perhaps she is eating her own feathers.​

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There are no apparent signs of mites, and I've looked for them primarily on the buffs, because they are easier to see there, but on everyone too, looking for different kinds on the feathers, at the base of the feathers, around the face and neck, etc. I don't think mites are a current problem, though they may have been in the past. Any feathers trying to grow around her rear and belly just look like a mess.​

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I decided to segregate her from the flock two days ago when I found her in a nesting box after I noticed she was there for a couple of hours. She had passed a shelless egg, and sat there, in the warmth. The egg yolk was now a really perfect over-medium, not runny, but jellied, and that and the albumen were coated on her rump, belly, and tops of her legs. As I moved her out, the other hens were definitely very interested, and I started thinking that maybe she still looks so bad is because she comes out of the coop covered in egg and the other hens are pecking the crap out of her to eat it.​

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No other hen in the flock has had this problem, so while Egg Drop Syndrome sounds plausible, I'd think that more than one could have gotten it by now.​

Any ideas on how to treat this chicken in terms of feed, supplements, medicine, habitat/segregation, will be appreciated.

-Alan

 

[dawg53]

It sounds like there's overcrowding going on. Perhaps expanding your coop would be best. Stress from overcrowding can cause hens not to lay eggs, lay misshapen eggs, shell-less eggs etc, and not to mention a host of other problems. If you kept a light on them at night during the winter to keep them warm, that makes feather picking/pecking much worse. Birds need sleep like people.

For the time being, switch feed to Gamebird feed which is higher in protein. It will help with feather regrowth. Then one month later wean them off the gamebird feed back to regular layer feed.

Inspect your birds closely for lice and mites. Lice are more of an irritant and mites are killers. They suck blood, cause anemia, then death. Treat both with either permethrin dust or permethrin liquid concentrate. Mixing instructions are attached to the container.
You'll have treat inside the coop, nest boxes and roosts. Get rid of the old bedding first, then after treating the inside of the coop and letting it dry, add new bedding as needed or sand if that's what you're using.

Also you want to ensure their pen is big enough as well. You might have expand their pen.

 

[AlanOfTheBerg]

Thanks for the reply.

Since only one hen is having a problem right now, are you saying I should isolate her and feed her the gamebird feed for a time?

We do have a light in their coop, not for heat, but for extending daylight hours. It's something like 30 lumens, very dim actually, but we did use it during the winter and perhaps that helped start the issues. As I noted, we haven't seen any lice or mites yet, and I am hesitant to use chemicals like permethrin (or Sevin) as a prophylactic. Their coop is on the small side and we are looking to replace it, but the current financial situation is going to delay that. Their outside run area, which is sand-footing, is I think near 500 sq ft. (12ft by around 40ft).