- Nov 12, 2008
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I have a mixed flock of 9 hens and one rooster, all a little over 13 months old. They have a spacious 8 x 10 henhouse and attached 12 x 12 run, and they freerange all day until dusk. Except for two hens featherpicking the others and the roo (we just fitted the offenders with pinless peepers so we'll see how that works) I haven't had any real health problems. I free-feed them organic mash the occasional scoop of grower crumbles or scratch as a treat, supplemented with kitchen trimmings, grapes and whatever else they can find on our 2-acre back yard. Production has been steady--averaging 6 eggs per day, more or less (One of my Barnevelders got broody this week and I've been trying to break her out of it!)
The problem is this--Lucy, my silver-laced Wyandotte, who used to be alpha hen but now is near the bottom of the pecking order, has been laying fine but now seems to have become eggbound.
When the gals were six or so months old I found one or two broken "rubber eggs" under the roosts, and more recently a broken egg with no shell under the roost, and a yolk-covered intact egg in one of the nests with nary a shell fragment in sight. I have no idea who was laying the rubber eggs, how the broken egg ended up on the droppings board, or how the yolk-covered egg got in the nest. I assumed that the rubber eggs were normal for new layers and the broken egg in the nest might have been the result of my Barnevelder hogging a favorite nest and cracking an egg which was then eaten.
The other thing is, for a period of about two weeks, every time Lucy would get into a nest to lay (we use covered cat litter boxes on the floor under the roost droppings boards) my roo would dash up and drag her out of the nest by her neck until I either yelled at him or threw him out so she wouldn't be disturbed.
I also had a saddle on her because my two troublemakers had plucked her back bare. She seemed to tolerate it well, but over the past two weeks she hadn't been quite as active as the others, preferring to lounge under a little pine tree we had in our backyard rather than dash around like the others. She also was the first to go into the house to roost. I chalked it up to her personality and the unseasonably hot weather we'd been having. Then two days ago I noticed today that Lucy was sitting in her favorite spot with her neck pulled in this time and not foraging at all, and eating and drinking only minimally. Her tail was still erect, but when she walked she lacked the pep of the others.
I took her into the henhouse, and gave her some electrolyte water by syringe. I also took off the saddle, afraid that she was depressed about wearing it. She drank two syringefuls down without complaint and seemed to perk up after that, and began drinking from the font and eating from the feeder again, and even following the others around and doing some minimal foraging for the next two or three days. Then I noticed that she had dried diarrhea under her vent, so I soaked some of it off and clipped off the rest. As I palpated her hindquarters under her vent as I clipped her I felt a hard, egg-sized mass located about an inch under her vent, close to the surface, where the fluff is. I figured she was ready to lay, but an entire day went by without my seeing her in any of the nest boxes. The mass was still there a day later.
Today I noticed that she was hunkered down again so gathered her up, lubed up a gloved finger and gently slipped it into her vent to see if the mass was still there, whereupon she grunted and bore down and tried to expel my finger, the first time I'd seen such behavior--but granted, I hadn't seen her trying to lay because I don't spend all my time in the henhouse. I could roll the mass around only a bit, but couldn't get my finger past it and couldn't get it to move up and out toward her vent, and I didn't want to get too rough and risk tearing something. All we got for our joint efforts was a fingerful of diarrhea.
I looked up the chicken anatomy chart and the egg, or whatever it is, seems to be lower than it's supposed to be; the oviduct looks higher on the diagram than the location of this mass is and I have to put my fingers UNDER her vent to feel the mass from the outside, .
I gave her a warm 30-minute sitz bath today. She really didn't relax like others here said she might, nor did she try to lay. When I went in with an ungloved finger this time she grunted again and let go with some runny white poop but nothing else. The mass was still in the same spot. I didn't feel the slightly textured feeling of a shell when I put my finger into her vent. It almost felt like there was a balloon-like membrane over a hard shell, because the egg was hard but slick, like something slippery was encasing it between it and my finger. I didn't feel anything else--no broken shells or anything of that sort.
I dried her off with my hair dryer, gave her more electrolyte solution through a syringe, which she accepted, and put her in a pet crate with towels and food and water in a warm room upstairs for the night, with a cover over the crate so she would relax and maybe sleep. My plan is to keep her there overnight to make sure she dries off completely (because it's going to dip to near freezing temps for the next few nights) and so she'll have a quiet night undisturbed by the others, and then release her outside tomorrow. I'm hoping when I check on her tomorrow morning I'll find an egg in the crate and that the situation will have resolved itself, but given the position of that egg, mass or whatever it is, I have my doubts. Is it possible for an intact, shelled, ready-to-lay egg to become "lost" in a hen's body, to drop down lower than her vent and stay there where she can't expel it?
Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to be as detailed as possible. Suggestions are welcome. I don't want to lose her, but I don't want her to suffer, either. This is my first flock.
The problem is this--Lucy, my silver-laced Wyandotte, who used to be alpha hen but now is near the bottom of the pecking order, has been laying fine but now seems to have become eggbound.
When the gals were six or so months old I found one or two broken "rubber eggs" under the roosts, and more recently a broken egg with no shell under the roost, and a yolk-covered intact egg in one of the nests with nary a shell fragment in sight. I have no idea who was laying the rubber eggs, how the broken egg ended up on the droppings board, or how the yolk-covered egg got in the nest. I assumed that the rubber eggs were normal for new layers and the broken egg in the nest might have been the result of my Barnevelder hogging a favorite nest and cracking an egg which was then eaten.
The other thing is, for a period of about two weeks, every time Lucy would get into a nest to lay (we use covered cat litter boxes on the floor under the roost droppings boards) my roo would dash up and drag her out of the nest by her neck until I either yelled at him or threw him out so she wouldn't be disturbed.
I also had a saddle on her because my two troublemakers had plucked her back bare. She seemed to tolerate it well, but over the past two weeks she hadn't been quite as active as the others, preferring to lounge under a little pine tree we had in our backyard rather than dash around like the others. She also was the first to go into the house to roost. I chalked it up to her personality and the unseasonably hot weather we'd been having. Then two days ago I noticed today that Lucy was sitting in her favorite spot with her neck pulled in this time and not foraging at all, and eating and drinking only minimally. Her tail was still erect, but when she walked she lacked the pep of the others.
I took her into the henhouse, and gave her some electrolyte water by syringe. I also took off the saddle, afraid that she was depressed about wearing it. She drank two syringefuls down without complaint and seemed to perk up after that, and began drinking from the font and eating from the feeder again, and even following the others around and doing some minimal foraging for the next two or three days. Then I noticed that she had dried diarrhea under her vent, so I soaked some of it off and clipped off the rest. As I palpated her hindquarters under her vent as I clipped her I felt a hard, egg-sized mass located about an inch under her vent, close to the surface, where the fluff is. I figured she was ready to lay, but an entire day went by without my seeing her in any of the nest boxes. The mass was still there a day later.
Today I noticed that she was hunkered down again so gathered her up, lubed up a gloved finger and gently slipped it into her vent to see if the mass was still there, whereupon she grunted and bore down and tried to expel my finger, the first time I'd seen such behavior--but granted, I hadn't seen her trying to lay because I don't spend all my time in the henhouse. I could roll the mass around only a bit, but couldn't get my finger past it and couldn't get it to move up and out toward her vent, and I didn't want to get too rough and risk tearing something. All we got for our joint efforts was a fingerful of diarrhea.
I looked up the chicken anatomy chart and the egg, or whatever it is, seems to be lower than it's supposed to be; the oviduct looks higher on the diagram than the location of this mass is and I have to put my fingers UNDER her vent to feel the mass from the outside, .
I gave her a warm 30-minute sitz bath today. She really didn't relax like others here said she might, nor did she try to lay. When I went in with an ungloved finger this time she grunted again and let go with some runny white poop but nothing else. The mass was still in the same spot. I didn't feel the slightly textured feeling of a shell when I put my finger into her vent. It almost felt like there was a balloon-like membrane over a hard shell, because the egg was hard but slick, like something slippery was encasing it between it and my finger. I didn't feel anything else--no broken shells or anything of that sort.
I dried her off with my hair dryer, gave her more electrolyte solution through a syringe, which she accepted, and put her in a pet crate with towels and food and water in a warm room upstairs for the night, with a cover over the crate so she would relax and maybe sleep. My plan is to keep her there overnight to make sure she dries off completely (because it's going to dip to near freezing temps for the next few nights) and so she'll have a quiet night undisturbed by the others, and then release her outside tomorrow. I'm hoping when I check on her tomorrow morning I'll find an egg in the crate and that the situation will have resolved itself, but given the position of that egg, mass or whatever it is, I have my doubts. Is it possible for an intact, shelled, ready-to-lay egg to become "lost" in a hen's body, to drop down lower than her vent and stay there where she can't expel it?
Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to be as detailed as possible. Suggestions are welcome. I don't want to lose her, but I don't want her to suffer, either. This is my first flock.
