Heat Stress or Infectious Bronchitis?

[SaidBlacksmith]

I need some help figuring out if I need to cool the girls down or if I've got a bigger problem.
First off-
The first offender is seven months old, has been laying for a month and a half, free ranges, stays in a coop with good ventilation and pine bedding, eats countryside organics layer mash with BOSS and DE added to it. She's a little on the big side, with the second offender being a little on the thin side. Everything else is the same for Miya, who is laying normal green eggs, but is panting.

Olive my Barred Rock and Miya my Easter egger-Mille mutt both pant pretty often. I just figured they were wimps, until this morning I got a soft egg and then at lunch I got a warped looking egg. Both are from Olive, one was under the roost and the other one she laid in her nesting box.


Here's a closer look at the strange one laid this afternoon.


The first one didn't bother me too much, she's only been laying a little over a month and I know she doesn't take the heat well, and we're setting records today here in Atlanta! It happened over night and I found it under the roost early this morning.

She laid again around one, so I went ahead and pulled the egg from under her and had to leave to go run an errand- when I got back around 2:15 she was still in the nesting box and panting very heavily. I grabbed her up and brought her inside- fed her a good amount of watermelon and put a fan on her- her wattle turned from the pale color it was to Bright red- redder than her normal. She had a huge poo- like she had been holding it in the box, a normal poo and then two or three watery poos. I'm guessing she was cooling off. The panting eventually stopped, she ate some wet mash and chilled in the Kitchen for a few hours, seemingly fine.

I did hear a tiny sneeze from her, but nothing else.

The reason I'm concerned about IB is the shape of the second egg- it's flatish on one side and looks just like one on this site: http://partnersah.vet.cornell.edu/avian-atlas/search/lesion/378
All of these chickens have been here for three months, and no problems until now. I have had Olive since she was a chick, and got Miya three months ago. My neighbor three doors down (and up hill from me) did just add four new birds to his flock, and has two that have always panted, and he never could figure out why.
Should I be concerned? If it is IB everyone probably has it, huh?

Thanks in advance for any of your wisdom!

 

[JerseyGiantfolk]

How hot has it been getting?
One of my hens has Chronic Bronchitis; no egg production, heavy breathing. And one other does too: Mis-shapen eggs. Chronic Bronchitis can permanently damage a hens ovaries, to mis-shapen or low to no egg production sometimes.

I'm sorry about the egg problem.

 

[Jane1234]

I guess you could treat them for heat stress in case it's that. Any stress will cause abnormal eggs so this could be the case.

Also lack of calcium can lead to soft shells. So using the hard egg shells from their eggs, let them dry, grind them up, microwave to kill any bacteria
then once cool add to their feed. This will increase their calcium consumption and hopefully harden up their eggs in case that is the issue.

If it's a respiratory condition (sneezing as you have heard), add some antibiotic powder to their water. You can buy this at stock feed stores (I live in Australia
and I buy mine online). If a chicken has a respiratory condition they can produce weird eggs or stop laying. You won't hurt your chickens by treating
them just in case.

Then if you have done all these things and their is no improvement within a couple of weeks, you can look at some other possibilities.