Hens ~ Blood Smear on Eggs

[ladya]

Over the past few days I've noticed that a couple of our hens (Ameraucanas) had some blood smear on their eggs. It seems like this all started around the same time. We lost one last evening when we went out to take care of them. This hen had lost some feathers on her back above the behind area. Her butt was all bloodied and swollen when we found her. Now we've got a couple more Ameraucanas looking like this. I'm feeling pretty helpless as I'm no vet and I'm not sure what's going on. Why did this start all at once with a few of them? They must have laid eggs today as each day we've gone in and collected our eggs and they keep having blood smear. So I'm thinking they've already laid an egg. Ergo, they wouldn't be egg bound. But really... Now we're talking a few hens all at once with a prolapsed vent? Something fishy is going on here. The only new things we've got going on are that they've recently been moved to a new coop, we add neomycin to their water to treat our rooster's cold, and their bedding was becoming sparse so we added more to make sure they have adequate place to lay. We plan to clean their coop out fully and replace with new bedding tomorrow. Any ideas or help is appreciated.

 

[slschul3]

Remeber egg prolapse happens when an egg is being pushed out and that portion that pushed the egg out does not retratc. Imagaine a giant hemorioid. As for the rooster, if there is no nasal discharge labored breathing or fowl smelling breath," sorry for the play on words", I would skip the antibiotics. Then there are the hens, how old are they, have there behaviors changed, appearence changed ECT...Also look for one of your chickens with possible blood on its beek. It could be mites and causing the blood around the vent and other chickens just love to peck at wounds.

 

[ladya]

As for the rooster. Thanks for the advice. He's been sneezing a lot and his crow hasn't been that big beautiful bold crow that it always was these past two years.

 

[ladya]

As for the hens, the appearance change is that their backs are starting to loose feathers and look all puffed up. They feel underneath like they're full of liquid. This definitely doesn't just look like a hen with a bloody beak that's going around and bloodying other hens. They have runny poop coming out of them so I can tell there's a problem with each of them. But why all at once and what's going on?

 

[Eggcessive]

Neomycin will not treat a respiratory disease. You are better off with using oxytetracycline or Tylan. I would separate the rooster and treat him separartely. Antibiotics in your water will get into your eggs, so they will need to be discarded for a certain period. A smear of blood occasionally may be normal, but I think you have some chickens pecking each others vents. The dead chicken could have had a prolapsed vent, and got pecked to death, but they shouldn't all be having this. I'm afraid you ill need to observe them for awhile this weekend. You might want to make sure they are getting at least 16% protein in the diet (and I would increase it to 20% if they are.) Boredom, too little room, and too little protein can cause feather picking, but it also can become a habit by some chickens.

 

[Eggcessive]

As for the hens, the appearance change is that their backs are starting to loose feathers and look all puffed up. They feel underneath like they're full of liquid. This definitely doesn't just look like a hen with a bloody beak that's going around and bloodying other hens. They have runny poop coming out of them so I can tell there's a problem with each of them. But why all at once and what's going on?

Are they molting? If they feel like they are puffed up and full of liquid, they may have egg yolk peritonitis and ascites. Here are 2 links with info:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/68731/laying-hens-with-water-belly-or-ascites
http://www.avianweb.com/eggyolkperitonitis.html