As I type this I am sitting on my bathroom floor with a damp chicken and a heater.
About an hour ago I went outside to investigate an unusually noisy chicken. It was General Tso, wheezing so loudly I could hear her across the yard. As I approached she did the squat and I played with her tail and she did the poofy bird like normal.
After a quick consult of BYC on my phone (and after immediately changing their water so the rest had antibiotics and vitamins) I grabbed her and gave her a soak in the tub with warm water and a few drops of lavender oil, splashing it up at her vent. After about 10 minutes she had a massive poop. I took her out of the tub and she discovered the heater.
She's now wheezing only on the exhale and has had three smaller poops. She's picked at a small pile of scratch and had been eating when I brought her in. She's preening and has good color, no discharge from anywhere and her tail is at its normal height.
Does this sound like an egg thing? The wheezing is throwing me off, but I guess it's... oh, she is trying to push now and her wheezing has quieted and slowed. Her vent isn't moving with breath anymore. She's purring and growling on the exhale while preening and actively pushing.
She also just turned one year old a couple days ago and is preparing to molt. Neck feathers are a little raggedy.
Eggs this week have been weird. My five girls laid six eggs yesterday. Not sure who doubled up. There have been super jumbos, really pale ones (brown is the norm), and a water balloon egg. There is also a chicken or two that have decided it's more fun to have me hunt for eggs than to leave them in the nest.
Any suggestions?
ETA: She's been just standing in one spot for about 10 minutes, not moving, just wheezing in and out. Granted she's a foot from the heater and looks like she'll take a nap any moment (me, too. It's about 80 degrees in here) She isn't straining and ate the rest of the scratch. The wheezing changes back and forth from a bronchitis wheeze to a soft rrrrrr.
More edits: wheezing stopped briefly and she bok-bokked while fixing her feathers.
About an hour ago I went outside to investigate an unusually noisy chicken. It was General Tso, wheezing so loudly I could hear her across the yard. As I approached she did the squat and I played with her tail and she did the poofy bird like normal.
After a quick consult of BYC on my phone (and after immediately changing their water so the rest had antibiotics and vitamins) I grabbed her and gave her a soak in the tub with warm water and a few drops of lavender oil, splashing it up at her vent. After about 10 minutes she had a massive poop. I took her out of the tub and she discovered the heater.
She's now wheezing only on the exhale and has had three smaller poops. She's picked at a small pile of scratch and had been eating when I brought her in. She's preening and has good color, no discharge from anywhere and her tail is at its normal height.
Does this sound like an egg thing? The wheezing is throwing me off, but I guess it's... oh, she is trying to push now and her wheezing has quieted and slowed. Her vent isn't moving with breath anymore. She's purring and growling on the exhale while preening and actively pushing.
She also just turned one year old a couple days ago and is preparing to molt. Neck feathers are a little raggedy.
Eggs this week have been weird. My five girls laid six eggs yesterday. Not sure who doubled up. There have been super jumbos, really pale ones (brown is the norm), and a water balloon egg. There is also a chicken or two that have decided it's more fun to have me hunt for eggs than to leave them in the nest.
Any suggestions?
ETA: She's been just standing in one spot for about 10 minutes, not moving, just wheezing in and out. Granted she's a foot from the heater and looks like she'll take a nap any moment (me, too. It's about 80 degrees in here) She isn't straining and ate the rest of the scratch. The wheezing changes back and forth from a bronchitis wheeze to a soft rrrrrr.
More edits: wheezing stopped briefly and she bok-bokked while fixing her feathers.
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but I'm convinced the yoghurt/antibiotics that one time cleared her out, and she lived for a year longer than that so it wasn't just being egg bound that did her in. I really do recommend yoghurt as a way of shifting blocked eggs, best sooner than later. I do mix calcium powder in their pellets now too as an aid to shell development.
don't get me wrong, i'm not saying to give the yogurt instead of the calcium, just that it has some calcium in it. Look up egg binding treatment and you'll find that it is usually treated with calcium, d3 and E.
