hardened yolk in vent

[lilmac]

Hello!

I am new here and as I was writing this post, my 3 year old Rhode Island Red died. Yesterday, we realized "four" wasn't well and when I picked her up her vent was covered with maggots. My husband reamed her out and she was full of hardened egg?...alot of it. We cleaned her out as well as we could and made her comfortable with food and water. She seemed very responsive and ate and drank...she wanted to get better. She moved into a shadier spot and we could tell she was very tender. Today she was again covered with maggots on the vent and we could smell infection...she died a short time later. Can anyone tell me what happened to her?

 

[welovechickens]

Had she ever laid an egg before? It sounds like she could have been an internal layer, which is a really bad situation. Sorry you lost her.

 

[lilmac]

thanks for the condolences...she laid well until last year when she was traumatized by a coon in the hen house...since then only 1 out of 3 left have been laying daily...not sure which one.

 

[welovechickens]

Hmm.....then she likely wasn't an internal layer, as I think a chicken suffering with that never lays an egg. I'm wondering if an egg got broken inside of her somehow (trauma of some sort?) and caused an infection.

Poor girl!

 

[lilmac]

thanks for your input, I am reading articles about internal layers. This is a term I was not familiar with.