Good morning. My pullets are 25 weeks old, and I believe that everyone is laying as of Tuesday. Cagney was the first to lay. She started about a month ago and for a couple of weeks gave me an egg every day or two. They were steadily getting larger. On Monday I realized that day was the first in several that I got one from her. Yesterday after school I went to let them out of their run to range around in the yard. She is usually the first one to the door to greet me. But yesterday she was over near the corner of the run. She did come out, but didn't go too far from the run for several minutes. The first thing I noticed was that she was walking slowly and she stopped about halfway to the house, whereas normally she runs along next to me all the way to the back door where she waits for a treat. She scratched around for a few minutes and then just stood watching the others. I picked her up and looked her over to make sure she wasn't injured. I saw nothing out of the ordinary except some dirty spots on one wing and her back, which I figured must have been splashes from the oatmeal I gave them in the morning. Her vent looked fine, eyes were clear. Her tail was going up and down slightly but it was up as usual. I felt her belly and crop and nothing felt hard or mushy. Her crop was full. They are on layer pellets and have oyster shell in a pan in the run. They had oatmeal yesterday morning, and I also put half a pumpkin with a few seeds stuck to the inside into the run. It was gone except for the hard shell, picked totally clean when I got home. Could she have eaten so much of it that she was just uncomfortable? I am new to chickens but I feel like from the descriptions you all have given in other posts I would be able to tell if something were wrong. When it was time to go in, everyone followed me to the run and she kinda lagged behind and was the last in. She turned her beak up at the BOSS. I had just cleaned and filled the waterers while they were ranging the yard, and she drank several sips of water. When I went up to lock up the coop, she was in her usual spot on the top roost but was facing the corner and was looking a bit droopy. I thought maybe she might be eggbound or have something else going on. This morning I went up to check her at 5:10 and she was on the roost looking toward the window, and looked very perky. I did look under the roost and saw only normal firm poops, nothing unusual at all. Once again, she was the first out the pop door. And, lo and behold, Miss Cagney is acting like her usual self in the run, scratching around like there is no problem at all. Do chickens just have off days? Am I worrying about something that is perfectly normal? Thanks for offering any advice or suggestions!
It takes young pullets a while to get into the rhythm of egg laying. She may have had a larger one than normal moving through her and could be uncomfortable because of it. When you pick her up feel under her wing to see if she is unusually warm. Temperature is always a good indicator if there is an underlying problem.
They normally DONT have off days. It sounds like she was a little glutton for the pumpkin like you mentioned, sounds like she ok now. I wouldnt worry about.
The rest of the story is that today she layed a very large egg! Maybe it was a combination of circumstances that had her behaving that way. She was perfectly fine when I came home at lunchtime to check on her.
