egg bound? shell bound?

[Kjukkjuk]

my little cream leg bar named Runt recently started laying. but this morning when i collected eggs and let them out onto the range i noticed Runt was limping a bit. i also noticed in the nesting box that the other eggs were covered with egg yolk/white, as if one of the ladies laid an egg without a shell (?) or as she was laying it broke and the liquid egg came out but the shell remained (?). i could not find any shell debris in the nesting box. i guess another possibility is that one of the ladies ate the shell of an egg and left the goo all over the place (?) but that seems unlikely because they've all been laying for awhile now without any issues like that. but again, Runt was limping...

so... i picked her up, inspected her as best i could and found now obvious injuries or bumblefoot etc. i tried to inspect her nethers but she wouldn't raise up her hind end for me like usual and so i couldn't get a good look to see if anything was obvious there) she was clean and bug free. i soaked her in a nice warm bath for about 10 minutes and she seemed to like that. i let her walk around a bit and dry in the sun and she pooped normally and then i put her into my chicken hospital (big dog crate with food, water and a slice of melon all on a bed of fresh pine shavings in the shade and protected from the wind).

now what?

 

[Hens rule]

It's possible the egg broke in her but unlikely because you would see egg on her butt area or small pieces of shell. Since your hens just began laying it's likely one of your hens (maybe her) layed a soft shelled egg and it broke and the shell was eaten by one of your birds for calcium. Birds who have just began to lay do often lay soft shelled eggs and sometimes eat the shell.

It sounds like you are doing a good job. Soak again if you can and if you have tums/roalaids they can help chickens who are egg bound.good luck!

 

[Kjukkjuk]

i ended up taking her to the vet and the vet concluded she was not egg bound and just had a soft tissue injury and to give her time to convalesce... so i've got her in her own little kingdom (the front yard) and she laid an egg yesterday and i was hopeful because the vet said there's a nerve that runs along that area that might be causing her some leg use issues (egg pressing on the nerve as it moves along) but now today it just looks like she doesn't want to use the leg at all and is sort of hopping around on her left leg. she came out of the kennel once and ate and i gave her a nice warm soak... but now she's been back in the kennel just sitting there. i guess time will tell...