Do chickens go into labor?

[pascopol]

digitS' :

Let's see - A hen weighing 2400 grams produces an egg that weighs 60 grams. That egg is 2.5% of the hen's total weight. This would be equivalent to a 135 pound woman giving birth to a 3.5 pound baby - every day! . . . if everything else was equal.

Amazing, isn't it?

Coturnix quail eggs weight ratio to their body weight is even higher:

about 5%, but those amazing birds do not seem to struggle with eggs like chicken hens. I've seen Coturnix hens dropping their eggs while eating without stopping eating for a second.​

 

[Demeter]

Wow!

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

I have a teeny tiny banty hen, a modern game, who is a show chicken and a pet. She is with my son or I alot of the time, she is very social and she is too small to go in with the big girls.

Anyway, you can feel when she has an egg in her bottom when she's sitting on your shoulder or something. The first time I felt it I thought she had a tumor or something going on but I felt her bottom and lo and behold you could distinctly make out the shape of the hard egg inside of her from feeling on the outside.
She has stayed like that for hours before finally laying.
She's a good little layer too, about an egg a day and skips every 6th and 7th day.

 

[the_eagle69]

i have seen some of the young ones just walking along and drop eggs on the ground just as they would there poop and never stop. So i belive some can some cant some will some wont.

 

[digitS']

Here would be 20% of body weight. An X-ray of a kiwi carrying an egg.

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/10/06/science/07bird3_ready.html

 

[Demeter]

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

digitS' :

Here would be 20% of body weight. An X-ray of a kiwi carrying an egg.

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/10/06/science/07bird3_ready.html

Holy crap! That poor thing!

 

[kryptoniteqhs]

i would think that they could "hold it" for a very short period of time, but when its coming...ITS COMING! Today I went outside and left 2 of my RIRs to freerange early this morning. I found it wierd when I came back later and saw that she hadnt laid and egg. When she free ranges, she lays in one spot and if shes in the coop she lays in another. But, as soon as I opened the coop door to give her freedom to go in and out as she pleases, she walked into the nest box in the coop to lay an egg. I think she may have been putting it off for her favorite nest box. I honestly dont think they can hold it for any length of time though, even having said this. But Im curious as to what a scientist or vet would have to say about this.

 

[kryptoniteqhs]

Whats a kiwi?
Edited to say NM i looked it up myself lol

 

[colby318]

Mine act like my dog when he needs to take a poo. All hunched over but has to have the RIGHT spot to her duty. I've watched them lay. It's not romantic!