Please help! Diarrhea & bleeding........egg stuck!

[ct_sibfarms]

I am new to chickens and not really sure what to do. I have 21 chickens w/4 roos and these are all free range chickens. I let them out early in the morning and close them up once they've all roosted. I have a domonique hen who is about 5 months old (got all the chickens as baby chickens so they have all grown up together). Yesterday I noticed she was hanging out by herself near my back door. I thought this was a little odd as they are normally in groups all over the yard. She had really runny poo on her back end and I figured she must be getting sick and made a mental note to keep an eye on her. Today she is hanging more with the other chickens but the runny poo seams to be worse and she is bleeding. Not gushing but leaving a dot of blood hear and there. Any ideas what this would be and how I can help her. I am in the house now getting things together to go and clean her up some. Should I keep her seperated? I have not witnessed the other chickens harassing her. I have worried about having to many roos but have only had one big fight between the roos so haven't had the need to do anything about it. Any advise would be helpful! Thank you!

 

[ct_sibfarms]

ok was just out cleaning her up and now I can see that it's a GIANT egg she's trying to push out! Do I just let her be or do I do something to help her? if this started yesterday is there another one coming behind it?
ouch!!!

 

[Noobchick]

I'm sorry i dont have specific advice for you (haven't had experience with this myself), but it may be worth doing a search of this site. Searching for something like "difficulty laying" might be helpful. If this is her first egg, maybe it's just going to take a while?? I'd be hesitant to mess with her until you're sure what to do.

 

[ct_sibfarms]

I have her cleaned up and rubbed some lanolin oil on the vent area. I seperated her and made a little chicken ICU pen with a dog house and a wire dog crate, and put in some old rags she was happy to nest in. Going to give her an hour or so and we'll see what happens. I've been reading other posts on egg bound chickens so have a couple different things I'm going to try like a warm bath. Pretty cold nights here so she'll have to stay in the house once she's had her bath. My husband will be thrilled!

 

[Silkie-lover33]

Is there a membrane stuck to the egg? If so find a place on the egg that is is not covering and crack the egg with a fork. The membrane may take a while to go back in but your hen should be fine.

 

[OregonChickenGal]

Put her in a warm bath up to her sides and gently massage her abdomen. Hopefully she'll lay it so you won't have to break it. If it does break, be very careful when pulling out the shells, so
it doesn't cut her. You may have to put some mineral oil on the egg to help it out.

 

[mallory2013]

Poor girl! How is she doing?

 

[ct_sibfarms]

I moved her to another quiet dark place. If she hasn't passed it over night I'm going to do the warm bath in the morning. Had planned on doing it tonight and keep her in the house but my 3 year old was not about to leave her alone and it's to cold to keep her outside being wet and this late. She seems to be doing ok, still has not passed the egg. But she's up walking around from time to time and drinking and eating some. I had read keeping her in the dark would help reduce the production of eggs. If I end up doing the breaking thing.....it just seems it would be really hard to get out. I guess at that point though I can get a finger or 2 in to fish for it??? Is that how that works?

I really don't understand a lot about the birds and bees with the chickens.....I'm assuming the hen egg size depends on her? She's a domonique and my roos are Blue Laced Wyandottes. Would they be the cause of a larger egg? That's what I'll be researching tonight! Thank you for all your help. It's nice to have a place to go to get some answers and ideas!

 

[ct_sibfarms]

She still had not delivered yet this morning so I was getting her ready for her warm bath when my father-in-law came along. He pushed until he seen the tip of the egg crown. We rubbed the membrane and kind of squeezed behind the egg and she finaly let the egg out. I have to say it's really not that big of an egg. We washed her up with antiseptic wash, put some Preperation H and put her back in the "ICU" pen. Everything looked like it was getting back to normal but I thought it might give one of the roos a reason to mess with her and thought she could use the rest. I plan on letting her back out later this afternoon so I can see how she does with everyone else before penning them back up for the night. I also had the 3 year old paint her toenails bright red so I had a way to track her once she joined the rest of the flock.

 

[OregonChickenGal]

Just make sure if she's bleeding at all, do not put her back in with the others. They'll kill her by pecking on her vent until she bleeds to death.