WindyRoost
Songster
We had an interesting situation earlier this month and maybe it can help someone else.
Clementine on the right
We started our flock two years ago raising 8 chicks by hand. Someone started laying fart eggs early this spring once every week or two and we eventually narrowed it down to Clementine, who I *think* was an ISA Brown but might have been Novogen. Either way I didn’t expect her to reach ancient chicken days because of the inherent problems with death layer-type breeds.
Anyway, she began laying fart eggs but otherwise kept up her regular production until about a month ago. I checked on the hens one morning to find her just standing in the run, obviously not feeling well, head sunk into her feathers and dozing a lot. After a bit of research and palpating I figured she might be egg bound and did feel an egg in her abdomen. I gave her a calcium +D3 tablets and confined her alone for three days but she still hadn’t laid. By this time I could feel several eggs backed up and after gentle manipulation failed, I inserted a finger to see if I could feel the egg (I’m not familiar enough with chicken anatomy to know where that egg was supposed to be depth-wise).
I didn’t feel anything but when I withdrew my finger albumen followed and I realized I’d probably broken a very brittle egg shell. Crud.
I kept her confined and watched her for another day or two and she definitely perked up. She’d pooped bits of shell and yolk and her poops after were regular and normal looking so I put her back with the others and continued the calcium supplement. She carried on acting more or less normal, although she quit climbing the ladder at night and instead roosted on the ground level roost.
Then last Monday things changed. She ranged with the others some but several times during the day I saw her sitting in the dust bath alone for at least an hour. Same Tuesday and Wednesday. When I felt around there were two lumps in her abdomen but not where eggs would be. Thursday she spent most of the day huddled under the egg box. Her comb was pale, and although she ate and drank some she was declining and obviously miserable. We decided to cull her that night and do an uneducated necropsy.
That poor hen!
I’m not sure whether infection set in from the broken egg inside her, we did find bright yellow yolk spread along the uterus. However we also found two large baseball-size lumps of what we believe to be cancer.
Many long time chicken keepers say cull,cull,cull, and it’s a hard decision especially in a smaller flock like mine. However I really believe it was the best thing for that hen. Her egg laying days were over, and with the other issues she had going on she wasn’t comfortable at all. Next time I would treat her differently from the beginning, ruling out other diseases or parasites, but I’m glad to know that reproductive issues and maybe cancer can be at the heart of a sick hen’s fart eggs.
Someone more familiar with the inside of a chicken might be able to say what we’re looking at exactly but the bright yellow and the lumps were obviously abnormal.
The largest of these lumps is baseball sized.
Clementine on the right
We started our flock two years ago raising 8 chicks by hand. Someone started laying fart eggs early this spring once every week or two and we eventually narrowed it down to Clementine, who I *think* was an ISA Brown but might have been Novogen. Either way I didn’t expect her to reach ancient chicken days because of the inherent problems with death layer-type breeds.
Anyway, she began laying fart eggs but otherwise kept up her regular production until about a month ago. I checked on the hens one morning to find her just standing in the run, obviously not feeling well, head sunk into her feathers and dozing a lot. After a bit of research and palpating I figured she might be egg bound and did feel an egg in her abdomen. I gave her a calcium +D3 tablets and confined her alone for three days but she still hadn’t laid. By this time I could feel several eggs backed up and after gentle manipulation failed, I inserted a finger to see if I could feel the egg (I’m not familiar enough with chicken anatomy to know where that egg was supposed to be depth-wise).
I didn’t feel anything but when I withdrew my finger albumen followed and I realized I’d probably broken a very brittle egg shell. Crud.
I kept her confined and watched her for another day or two and she definitely perked up. She’d pooped bits of shell and yolk and her poops after were regular and normal looking so I put her back with the others and continued the calcium supplement. She carried on acting more or less normal, although she quit climbing the ladder at night and instead roosted on the ground level roost.
Then last Monday things changed. She ranged with the others some but several times during the day I saw her sitting in the dust bath alone for at least an hour. Same Tuesday and Wednesday. When I felt around there were two lumps in her abdomen but not where eggs would be. Thursday she spent most of the day huddled under the egg box. Her comb was pale, and although she ate and drank some she was declining and obviously miserable. We decided to cull her that night and do an uneducated necropsy.
That poor hen!
I’m not sure whether infection set in from the broken egg inside her, we did find bright yellow yolk spread along the uterus. However we also found two large baseball-size lumps of what we believe to be cancer.
Many long time chicken keepers say cull,cull,cull, and it’s a hard decision especially in a smaller flock like mine. However I really believe it was the best thing for that hen. Her egg laying days were over, and with the other issues she had going on she wasn’t comfortable at all. Next time I would treat her differently from the beginning, ruling out other diseases or parasites, but I’m glad to know that reproductive issues and maybe cancer can be at the heart of a sick hen’s fart eggs.
Someone more familiar with the inside of a chicken might be able to say what we’re looking at exactly but the bright yellow and the lumps were obviously abnormal.
The largest of these lumps is baseball sized.
