One Rhode Island Red That's not Laying

[otoro]

We have 4 birds, 3 RIR, and 1 Ameraucana.

One of these sweet ladies is named Lara. She is very curious and I think is our smartest bird.
She struggled during the moult this year, and looked sickly and required a lot of 1 on 1 time with extra protein. Since just before winter, she stopped laying.

She went through a treatment course of amprolium due to watery diahhrea, which helped her stool, but she hasn't been quite normal ever since. months and the winter went by, and I chalked her not laying up to that previous sickness.

Since then she's been dewormed, and has had some bouts of more activity and hanging out with the flock, but still hasn't laid a single egg. All my other birds lay almost every day.

I've noticed variation in her crop that I don't see with other birds, some days its a bit harder, and I've also seen it be "filled with gas" almost, and too squishy. During these times I've given her some extra electrolytes, sav a chick, a bit of olive oil, and small amount of ACV to try and rebalance out her digestion. It seems to help a little in the short term, but still no eggs.

For the most part she looks and acts pretty healthy, but wanders from the flock often, she has a natural curiosity about things that the other birds don't (wants to look around in side the shop, I've seen her looking up gutters, etc).

I want her to be a healthier bird, but vet is out of the question for us. Anybody have any ideas on anything else to try?

 

[otoro]

They also eat Purina LAYENA, and get some mealworm treats, and some flaxseed, plus some other food bits from the week.


This was Lara when she was struggling during moult

Here's a more recent pic of her filled out since, but no eggs

 

[otoro]

bump. she continues to eat ok, but not lay :-/

 

[A_Fowl_Guy]

How old is she?

 

[otoro]

All of our girls are about a year old now

 

[A_Fowl_Guy]

Has she laid before?

 

[otoro]

Yeah she was laying prior to this winter

 

[A_Fowl_Guy]

Should could be hiding a clutch.

 

[otoro]

there's really nowhere for her to hide it. we have the omlet movable coop/run, and relolcate it about once every 2 weeks in good weather. eggs are too large to pass through the main coop standing area, and the laying area has some pine shavings and golf balls. we check for eggs in the leaves before and after we move the coop too.

they free range too, but usually supervised bc we've had a fox attack in the past year.

 

[A_Fowl_Guy]

Give her time then. Keep an eye out for being egg bound.