Drooping tail, should I be worried?

[bplpbcpbr]

Hi! one of our chickens has had a droopy tail that I've noticed the last 2 days. She's energetic, friendly, still eating and drinking and laid a soft shell egg last night so I don't think she's eggbound. She just started laying in the last week or so, so we're hoping the soft shelled eggs will resolve themselves soon? I've heard a drooping tail can just be that she's the lowest in the pecking order (She probably is? she's definitely the smallest of our little flock). I checked her vent today, it looks clean and isn't swollen, and I couldn't feel anything like an egg when I palpated her abdomin, although I'm not sure if I would feel a soft shelled egg if she were eggbound. If anyone's dealt with something like this I'd love to hear from you, thank you so much!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I would give her calcium citrate +D3 tablets every day for a week. This will help her pass soft-shell or shell-less eggs and also harden her shells. Available at any grocery or store that sells supplements or vitamins. Easiest to give on the roost at night. Just pull down wattles and pop in beak, she'll swallow it. You can give up to 630 mg/ day which works out to two tablets, can give one in morning and one at night.

Do you have oyster shell available in a separate dish or vessel in a dry place so your layers can help themselves?

 

[bplpbcpbr]

I would give her calcium citrate +D3 tablets every day for a week. This will help her pass soft-shell or shell-less eggs and also harden her shells. Available at any grocery or store that sells supplements or vitamins. Easiest to give on the roost at night. Just pull down wattles and pop in beak, she'll swallow it. You can give up to 630 mg/ day which works out to two tablets, can give one in morning and one at night.

Do you have oyster shell available in a separate dish or vessel in a dry place so your layers can help themselves?

Thank you for the advice! yes all our ladies have free access to oyster shell, but I haven't noticed if she eats it much, so we'll definitely try the tablets

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Thank you for the advice! yes all our ladies have free access to oyster shell, but I haven't noticed if she eats it much, so we'll definitely try the tablets

They eat so little of the OS it's hard to tell if they're taking it at all, but usually they are. But sometimes they need the Vit D to prcess it properly, so the calcium +D3 gives them kind of a jump-start. Good luck with her!

 

[bplpbcpbr]

An update in case anyone comes across this with the same problem:
She ended up having a big chunk of dried poop above her vent that made a bit of an absess, I'll attach a photo but it's a bit gross jsyk. We trimmed the surrounding area and cleaned the feathers the best we could and giving her sea salt baths and treating with neosporin and wound cleaner (worked for an injury our duck's foot had so here's hoping ) I'll post another update once she starts to heal a bit, but she did start lifting her tail a bit higher immedietly after her bath. If you're in a similar situation I hope your chicken improves!
yucky photo

 

[Bawkbok]

Happy you found the source of her issue.
We're used to yucky poop photos here, not to worry.

 

[bplpbcpbr]

New (and final) update,
After some deductive reasoning we decided she laid a soft egg that stuck to her feathers, said clump got stuck on something which caused a flap of her skin to be torn off (brutal I know)
After giving her a bath to get the worst of the gunk off as well as trimming the area, we gave her nightly sea salt baths and sprayed the wound with hydrogen peroxide and put some neosporin ointment on it. After a few days we transitioned to just the peroxide and neosporin until the scab fell off completely and the area looked mostly normal.
Dear Runty is now thankfully back to normal and her tail is no longer drooping. Thanks to everyone who commented, and if you've found this post because you're dealing with a similar problem, I wish the best for you and your chicken!