Shell-less egg and sick chicken

[pasuit]

Looks like you're taking good care of her . hang in there.

 

[andreanar]

I just went thru this with one of my girls. It started with soft shelled eggs, then progressed to crop issues. Soft shelled eggs are hard for them to pass because their muscles have nothing hard to press against to get the egg moving down and out. Giving the calcium will help those contractions. I hope your girl comes thru.

 

[pasuit]

I just went thru this with one of my girls. It started with soft shelled eggs, then progressed to crop issues. Soft shelled eggs are hard for them to pass because their muscles have nothing hard to press against to get the egg moving down and out. Giving the calcium will help those contractions. I hope your girl comes thru.

 

[pasuit]

 

[azygous]

If this hen is losing weight and you feel a "lump" on the right side of her chest wall, she may have a crop disorder and possibly an impacted gizzard that won't permit her to process food, thus she is starving to death slowly.

Does she have access to proper grit approximately an eight of an inch in diameter with good sharp edges? If your soil is mainly fine clay, it would be difficult for your chickens to find the right sort of natural grit for their gizzards.

She might do well with some crop treatment. https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

You may also need to buy grit after determining you don't have the right sort in your soil.

 

[aart]

And her breathing seems really labored now. I think I am losing her

I'm so sorry you're having to go thru this! It's a very hard part of chickeneering.
She could have been ill for quite awhile, they can hide it well until it's almost over.
Her crop could not be functioning well, or the intestine is compromised or plugged, thus the watery poop.
If she doesn't pull thru, the only way to know what really happened is to do a necrospy, not for the faint of heart but can answer the 'why' question if you really want to know.

 

[TheBeakBoutique]

I may have screwed up big time. I have been giving them the crushed oyster shell thinking it was for grit too. But I am guessing from the posts above that it is not? I should be giving them a separate grit? She has now developed a real spongy part right around her crop and she burped and it smelled absolutely awful. I tried getting her to take the crushed calcium on some egg but she is barely opening her eyes now. I did get some water in her with a dropper. Big difference from last night when she was eating and drinking on her own

 

[andreanar]

Sounds like sour crop now from the food not moving out of the crop.. You could try sitting with her and massaging her crop a few times a day. I ended up giving my sour crop girl Monistat Suppositories, the generic kind, each suppository cut into 3rds and I gave 1 in the am and 1 in the pm. In the meantime, I massaged and massaged her crop. I just opened her beak and popped it in and she would swallow it. If she is still alive, you can keep trying to locate and break up the blockage.

 

[TheBeakBoutique]

Thanks for the help everyone but Dora passed about an hour ago. I learned a lot from today's thread though and truly appreciate the time you took to help me through this.

 

[andreanar]

Thanks for the help everyone but Dora passed about an hour ago. I learned a lot from today's thread though and truly appreciate the time you took to help me through this.

I'm sorry. I lost my girl too. Pretty much the same thing. Started with shell less eggs, the progressed to impacted crop and then sour crop. I think I overdosed mine tho when I decided to give her a human antifungal pill and the dosage was too high. I should've stuck with the Monistat. But its a learning experience.