Egg bound? Molting?

[Bodhisan]

Two-year-old Blue Production - in an earlier thread, she was my girl who would poop half the time a little bit before she laid an egg. About a week ago she laid a shell-less egg, and hasn't laid since. About four days ago, she was listless, tail down (the penguin look), and not eating. That changed over the next few days - she was back to normal, eating, drinking, full of life - but no eggs. This morning she was back to being listless, tail down a bit, but now she's sort of back to normal and pecking at the ground, walking about.

One thing: She is missing her feathers on of her head, and I noticed this over a week ago, shortly before she laid the shell-less egg. However, I don't think this is molting - I think she was pecked at, but I might be wrong.

She has gone into the nesting box every day for a while, but to no avail.

My understanding is that if she is egg bound, then it becomes lethal within a couple of days - so this doesn't appear to be the case. She has had diarrhea, but yesterday morning on her portion of the poop board, it was more solid than runny.

Any clues here as to what might be going on? I've not established a relationship with my hens wherein I can walk up and pick them up, and I don't want to cause any harmful anxiety trying to lock her into my covered run so I can grab her and physically examine her. I've been waiting for another listless day wherein she's unable to move that quickly, but it's not happened yet to the extent I can shut the auto door in their covered run while she's in there and gently, if that's possible, corral her into a warm tub of water and epson salt and feel if there's an egg "in" there.

Any clues or ideas, thoughts?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

She may be laying internally.

I'd still get extra Calcium into her for a week and see if that makes a difference. You can find Calcium Citrate with D3 in the vitamin aisle of stores like Walmart, CVS, etc. Give 1 tablet daily, just pull down on her wattles, pop the tablet into the beak and let her swallow.

 

[Bodhisan]

She may be laying internally.

I'd still get extra Calcium into her for a week and see if that makes a difference. You can find Calcium Citrate with D3 in the vitamin aisle of stores like Walmart, CVS, etc. Give 1 tablet daily, just pull down on her wattles, pop the tablet into the beak and let her swallow.

Thanks for your response. In short - yesterday she laid. And since I'm just going into my fourth year as a chicken owner, I've not had enough experience to call this anything short of miraculous - because it was so unusual given what I've witnessed the past three years. It was a slightly larger-than-normal size, and almost white, compared to her "brown" (pink) eggs she normally lays.

There's no doubt, I can confirm, that my chickens appear to be lacking calcium, because most of their eggs - three out of four of my hens, have such a light shell, that when I crack them, I have to be careful not to hit them too hard. But I give them layer feed, egg shells, and oyster shell - the latter is always available to them.

If I learn anything new, I'll update this post.