newchickshelp13
In the Brooder
Hi guys, so glad we found this site, although to late for one of our girls, who we believe we lost this evening to being egg bound. She had slept in the nest box last night and we thought it was because big red was henpecking her, but today her tail was down and she seemed to be struggling to lay. I found this site, got lost of information and Steve went out and brought her in. I got my gloves and gel ready, but the poor girl just died in his arms, we are heart broken and so upset at ourselves for not realising earlier that she was having idffiuclites. I have checked our other seven hens whom seem to be ok at present, although our egg laying is down by three per day this past week, we thought becasue one of our Standard Poodle dogs accidently got into their run and they were stressed, I may add he did not do any of them any harm just jumped about like the header he is. We had thought of giving the hens some tums/ calcium tablets first thing in the morning as they leave there coop to try to make sure that they all lay tomorrow. If any of you have any suggestions we would greatly apprieciate them, as we are new to keeping hens, being city people who have moved to the country and know so little about caring for our girls, yet want to do the best for them I do think we are over feeding the girls and intend to weight their feed from tomorrow on. Our hens are big girls, laying big eggs, so estimate 100 gms of complete point of lay pellets per hen twice per day, we also have some complete maize perhaps 50 gms per hen, is this still to much?
