I'm worried about our hen Mrs. D, who seems to be egg-bound. She's a rhode island red, about a year old. On the small side but not very small.
She went through some stressful things recently where her daytime pen blew over from a very strong rogue wind. We normally have these 2 groups of hens in 2 different pens during the day - the GGs & the Chickitas. Mrs. Ds group is the Chickitas which is just her & her sister Patience. After the wind event we had to put the Chickitas in with the GGs, These 2 groups sleep in the same coop and mix together when they freerange everyday so we thought it would be fine, but after a few days it looked like Mrs D was being bullied by the GGs - like being pecked away from food and generally intimidated. I noticed how timid she was, not "fighting back.
So we took her and her sister and put them in a different pen, Then I noticed she wasn't as interested in eating as she normally was, and she'd stand a lot... just stand... not moving around like she normally would, she just wanted to stand somewhere as out of the way as she could find. It didn't look like she was trying to lay an egg - she was just standing in a neutral positiion, not hunched, not with her butt toward the ground, in fact these past 5 days her butt has been more in an UP position than down.
I wasn't sure what was going on so I took her into the house, gave her an epsom salt bath, felt her abdomen and afterwards put her in a warm dark bin & kept checking on her. She wanted to drink the epsom water and I read that can help with egg binding so I gave her more in her little hospital room.
Despite five days of care in the house, including isolation from the flock, rest, warmth, privacy, darkness, and five epsom salt baths in 4 days, there's no egg. After her epsom salt baths while she's relaxed I've tried massaging her abdomen and lubricating her vent with coconut oil, but its hard just inside the vent (egg I think) and I don't want to hurt her or break the egg. I did manage to push some coconut oil as lubricant in with a little syringe plunger.
She’s trying so hard. I see her standing and tensing, seems to be trying to push the egg out with her tail up. It’s different from the typical position of an egg bound hen, where the hen is more in a vertical squat I believe...?
Her condition seems stable, but with constipation. The first few days she had diarreah that smelled "eggy", then it became just watery with no smell for a day or so, and then yesterday I found small amounts of pasty poop. and today some "eggy" smells again but only found wet spots in her wood shavings.
Her diet is excellent I believe, organic layer feed, crushed oyster shells at her disposal for calcium, black fly larvae and various organic vegs/fruits for treats, a little scratch mix, fresh water.
None of our other hens have had this problem or any other health problem, although we did have one recently who passed away possibly could have been egg bound... we couldn't figure out what happened. We have 13 hens at the moment.
Her comb's color has improved since this ordeal began (5 days ago) and she's eating and drinking pretty well.
We have been praying for her to pass this egg for 5 days now. I don't know what else we can do for her. I have read to remove the egg innards with a syringe and then collapse the eggshell and take it out but i'm not at that advanced level and wouldn't feel confident to not hurt her. We can't afford a vet atm unfortunately.
The pics are of her today. She spends most of her time standling like this but she also lays down sometimes.
ANy suggestions?
She went through some stressful things recently where her daytime pen blew over from a very strong rogue wind. We normally have these 2 groups of hens in 2 different pens during the day - the GGs & the Chickitas. Mrs. Ds group is the Chickitas which is just her & her sister Patience. After the wind event we had to put the Chickitas in with the GGs, These 2 groups sleep in the same coop and mix together when they freerange everyday so we thought it would be fine, but after a few days it looked like Mrs D was being bullied by the GGs - like being pecked away from food and generally intimidated. I noticed how timid she was, not "fighting back.
So we took her and her sister and put them in a different pen, Then I noticed she wasn't as interested in eating as she normally was, and she'd stand a lot... just stand... not moving around like she normally would, she just wanted to stand somewhere as out of the way as she could find. It didn't look like she was trying to lay an egg - she was just standing in a neutral positiion, not hunched, not with her butt toward the ground, in fact these past 5 days her butt has been more in an UP position than down.
I wasn't sure what was going on so I took her into the house, gave her an epsom salt bath, felt her abdomen and afterwards put her in a warm dark bin & kept checking on her. She wanted to drink the epsom water and I read that can help with egg binding so I gave her more in her little hospital room.
Despite five days of care in the house, including isolation from the flock, rest, warmth, privacy, darkness, and five epsom salt baths in 4 days, there's no egg. After her epsom salt baths while she's relaxed I've tried massaging her abdomen and lubricating her vent with coconut oil, but its hard just inside the vent (egg I think) and I don't want to hurt her or break the egg. I did manage to push some coconut oil as lubricant in with a little syringe plunger.
She’s trying so hard. I see her standing and tensing, seems to be trying to push the egg out with her tail up. It’s different from the typical position of an egg bound hen, where the hen is more in a vertical squat I believe...?
Her condition seems stable, but with constipation. The first few days she had diarreah that smelled "eggy", then it became just watery with no smell for a day or so, and then yesterday I found small amounts of pasty poop. and today some "eggy" smells again but only found wet spots in her wood shavings.
Her diet is excellent I believe, organic layer feed, crushed oyster shells at her disposal for calcium, black fly larvae and various organic vegs/fruits for treats, a little scratch mix, fresh water.
None of our other hens have had this problem or any other health problem, although we did have one recently who passed away possibly could have been egg bound... we couldn't figure out what happened. We have 13 hens at the moment.
Her comb's color has improved since this ordeal began (5 days ago) and she's eating and drinking pretty well.
We have been praying for her to pass this egg for 5 days now. I don't know what else we can do for her. I have read to remove the egg innards with a syringe and then collapse the eggshell and take it out but i'm not at that advanced level and wouldn't feel confident to not hurt her. We can't afford a vet atm unfortunately.
The pics are of her today. She spends most of her time standling like this but she also lays down sometimes.
ANy suggestions?
It turned into quite a long bath, about an hour and then it was time for me to go back in the house, but she wanted to say outside and she made me chase her when I tried to pick her up, which I thought was a good sign, so I put her in a small run for the rest of the afternoon where I could see her from my window. She looked happy and lively, just pecking and foraging. Seeing her outside doing chicken things she just looks like her healthy self, and if not for the constipation I wouldn’t know there's anything wrong. 
