Egg bound or not?

[DuckYouMan]

Hi everyone! I have a couple of serama and today it looked like they had waterbelly, but after feeling the squishy abdomen, I do feel eggs. They are running around like normal, eating and drinking and generally being cute little monsters, terrorizing their roo. They have just about a month into laying age. My question is, is it normal for the abdomen to feel squishy before they're about to lay an egg and should I wait to intervene until they're actually showing signs of distress? I've given them some egg shells for calcium to hopefully help with contractions.

 

[CalBickieMomma]

Good questions. I'm not 100% sure but my rule of thumb is if they are acting totally normal, they are probably fine. But I'm also paranoid, so when someone seems to have something wrong, I try to address it ASAP. For example, I noticed one of my EE's crop wasn't emptying at night. She acted totally normal, but I brought her in and treated her for impacted crop. Eventually things seemed to get moving along, so I put her back out with the flock. The entire time she didn't act sick or anything like that, so who knows if it may have developed into something worse.

What you can try with yours is a warm epsom salt bath. My RIR hen was having trouble laying a while back - I could tell she was trying to lay but nothing was happening. I brought her in and gave her an epsom salt bath and ten minutes later, she popped out two eggs into the water (one with a soft shell that broke right away, the other egg kind of wrinkly).

BUT if your girls are egg bound, I've read that it can definitely be bad if things build up. So if that is the issue and it's just not bugging them yet, if you can take care of the problem now, it will be better in the long run. But I'd make sure it's eggs you are feeling. And I'm not sure if the abdomen will be squishy with egg binding (I'm assuming it all depends on how backed up the eggs are, I guess). Anyhoo, hopefully someone with more experience will chime in. Good luck!!!

 

[DuckYouMan]

I got her in a dark room by herself right now out of the heat. I don't have any epsom salt as I am not in the town it's harder to get out here right away. While I was feeling around, some liquid came out and made her belly look a little less watery. I'm thinking the egg is plugging her up which is in turn making making the bloated squishy look. You can definitely feel the egg right up by the vent. I'm checking with some neighbors to see fi they have any epsom salt.

 

[DuckYouMan]

YAY! Immediate results! So I put her in a warm bath without salt and lubed up my gloved hands with olive oil (all i had) and I massaged her whole belly and vent. I had to get my gloved finger in there a little but just enough to get the vent oiled up. Then I started gently massaging and she started trying to pass. I gave gently motions on the side of the belly and coaxed it out finally. She's all better now. Thank you! The egg that came out looked normal but was harder than a normal egg. Thank you again.