Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

Good to know. Are you any good at waxing lyrical about the benefits of chickens clearing up an old garden bed?
(Forgive me Shad but you don't strike me as the lyrical sort. )

You're right. I don't think waxing lyrical is my kind of thing.
However, I'm not passed a bit of executive decision making, particulalry whhen there is no one there to contest it and this has been a plan for a while.

 

[Sally PB]

Wow, poor Matilda! I'm glad you were able to help her.

Thanks for the description of what you did. How it works makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Shad I understand the concern you have for all them ..
Morning.
This is my Tax

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I wonder if she just felt kinda bleh and wanted to go to sleep before anything else went wrong for her.

 

[Shadrach]

The pro diggers at work.

 

[Shadrach]

I wonder if she just felt kinda bleh and wanted to go to sleep before anything else went wrong for her.

She probably did but I needed to see that all the eggs came out and see that she pooped. It's not over until you see a hen that was egg bound poop.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

The pro diggers at work.
View attachment 2949986View attachment 2949987View attachment 2949988View attachment 2949989View attachment 2949990

Who's the grey one?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

She probably did but I needed to see that all the eggs came out and see that she pooped. It's not over until you see a hen that was egg bound poop.

No, I meant more the sleeping before filling her crop up again

 

[Shadrach]

No, I meant more the sleeping before filling her crop up again

Ah, okay. Well it was dusk so she wouldn't have had much time to fill up anyway. I'll see what she's like tomorrow.

 

[Sortacountrychicken]

I saw Matilda make repeated visits to the nest box on the side of the main coop yesterday. She didn't lay an egg before they had all gone to roost and I had left.
Fortunatley I took some coconut oil with me this afternoon just in case.
When I let them out into the allotment run Matilda wasn't in the group and I found her in the nest box straining to lay an egg. I guess this had been going on all day.
I took hher out of the nest box and stood her on the ground in the allotment run.
This was the first time I've picked Matilda up and surprisingly she didn't make any fuss. I felt her abdomen and there was no doubt there was an egg there. Looking at her vent it became apparent from how far the inside of her vent was distended that the egg was stuck.
There aren't any warm bath, clean room, warm environment options at the allotment. Carrying home with what kit I had wasn't an option either due to the risk of breaking the egg inside her during transport.
I've rocked a few eggs out of hens in the past and given Matilda seemed not overly stressed by my attentions so far I decided to give it a go as she stood in the allotment. I oiled her vent right up to the place the egg made contact with her vent wall and the section of the egg I could reach.
By reaching under a hens belly you can feel the egg in most egg bound hens. By rocking the egg up and down and from side to side the oil that was spread inside the vent and on the egg gets sqeezed into the tight spots. It doesn't always work but it's worth trying before trying anything else.
It took a few moments and you can feel thhe egg moving more as you rock it. Eventually I gave a gentle squeeze just behind thhe egg and it slipped out into my waiting hand.
Obviously I couldn't take pictures of the procedure due to needing both hands for the procedure.

Here's the egg.
View attachment 2949860
Often one finds that there isn't just one egg wating to be delivered so I put Matilada back in the nest box and after a quick massage a near perfect egg, with the white partly cooked due to the heat got delivered.
View attachment 2949849
If a second egg stays in the hens vagina for along period of time they can cook solid and this causes further complications.
Natually Matilda not wanting anything to go to waste started to eat the second egg.
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Much to Matilda's horror I cleaned up the egg preventing her from eating any more (It had landed in a pile of poop) and deposited her outiside.
View attachment 2949851
I'm still not happy with how she looks.
Henry came over and shuffled around her giving her gentle pecks. He knew she was having problems it seems.
View attachment 2949852View attachment 2949853

Next Matilda set about relacing some of the fluids she lost.
View attachment 2949854
I'm still not happy. What I need is to see her poop all the waste that hasn't been able to get pooped out because the egg blocks the end of the intestines in many cases.
Matilad came and sat by me for a few minutes and I gave her belly a further massage. She wasn't keen on this and not wanting to stress her further I let her wander off.
View attachment 2949855

A few moments later she shot this lot out of her vent and a few seconds later delivered yet more.
View attachment 2949856
She went off to roost with the others. But I'm a bit concerned still because her crop was almost empty when she went to roost.

That is very interesting. I fortunately have not had any cases of egg binding that the hen couldn't pass within a couple hours.

If the egg were to be more severely stuck than Matilda's was, would you have to break the egg to remove it?