hen acting strange and straining

[chanie]

One of my Golden Comets starting acting odd yesterday- the best way I know to describe it is depressed. She's still eating and drinking, and moving around on her own, but she's noticeably less lively than the rest. She was following the other girls around more today, but yesterday she mostly stood off by herself. I noticed today that she was randomly straining, as if she was about to lay and her vent was bulging, almost inside out. (That may be normal, I never really watch them lay). It looked like a prolapse, but it was going back inside and returning to normal.
I gave her a warm bath in Epsom salts, blow dried her feathers (which she LOVED), and crushed half of a Tums up in applesauce. After that I noticed she had watery, yellow poop with a dark spot in it.

Not sure what I should do from here. Should I isolate her so I can know whether she is laying or not? Any advice is appreciated! Thank you.

 

[HEChicken]

It sounds like she may be egg-bound. I haven't experienced this first hand because I raise heritage chickens and I think this is primarily an issue with production layer breeds like the Golden Comet, so I'm afraid I don't have any advice to offer but wanted to chime in and suggest that you do a search on "egg bound" and see if you can get better info that way. Good luck!

 

[chanie]

She's seemed to have perked up over the past two days, to the point that I'm having trouble telling her apart from her 5 sisters. Unfortunately this is all coinciding with it getting cold and dreary here, and production is slowing down like I expected it would. Not sure if the epsom salt bath and bit of calcium boost helped, or if it was just something totally different that resolved on its own! Either way, I'm keeping a close eye on her and hoping for continued improvement!

 

[seminolewind]

First what you need to do is oil up a finger and check for an egg.