I noticed my hen was mostly away from her flock today and yesterday and figured she was doing her own thing. She was the first of my 5 original hens that started laying eggs. She usually lays early in the morning by the roost but these past 2 days there was nothing. Figured she was taking her 2 day break. This evening I noticed she wasnt going up in the roost.. she is usually the first one up there and the other girls follow so I picked her up and examined her. I noticed she has a few small poop spots on her down by her vent. While I was cleaning the poop off with a baby wipe I noticed she started leaking clear fluid... I started to worry that it might be a cracked egg so I gently felt around to see if there was any cracked shell or egg leaking and all of a sudden she started to contract... a few seconds later she pushed her egg out and I was able to catch it. It was soft shelled and lacked pigment. She usually lays a light brown egg and this one was lighter in color and super soft. Did my cleaning her down feathers by her vent have anything to do with her perhaps releasing her egg before she was actually ready or is there another reason for her odd behavior of staying away from the flock and not going up to roost right away, poop on her feathers and then the soft egg? Is my girl sick?? This first picture is the soft egg she laid this evening. The eggs in the carton that are the lightest tan colored ones are her normal eggs that she typically lays.
I doubt it but<shrugs> Soft shells eggs moving down the pike can make them act weird, the softness makes them hard to 'move'. Your probing might have stimulated the contractions. I'd advise against probing unnecessarily, and using wipes to clean a birds butt-they should be able to preen themselves clean.