Shell-Less Egg

[micstrachan]

It seemed like Dorothy hadn’t laid an egg in three days. I did find one egg, but no shell, wedged/oozed in between the coop and the mesh door. I thought it was possible that the girls could only reach the shell and that the egg itself slid down. However, today Dorothy was very, very off. So I brought her inside, gave her a calcium citrate and left her inside with some heat. Well, this is what happened.

Like the video says, I’ll put her on calcium for a few days. But what do you think about administering antibiotics? EYP has already killed two of my birds.

 

[azygous]

Most of us here do not have a "qualified vet". My vet admits he knows nothing about chickens, and neither does the one other vet in town. I am safe in assuming I know more than these two vets do about treating chickens. We always recommend folks here take a sick or injured chicken to a qualified vet if they have the luxury of having one within 150 miles and the financial means to pay the hefty bills. The alternative is sharing our experience here on these forums so others can treat their chickens in lieu of having no qualified vet to turn to.

 

[micstrachan]

Oh, happy day!!!

 

[micstrachan]

I'm so sorry.
This won't help you but I have to say it....


This is the reason I will not feed an all flock feed.
I know it doesn't always happen to everyone and it may not be the feed but it could be and I don't like the could part.
I'd rather not give them the option to eat oyster shell on the side.

Well, I don’t want to fry the organs of my non-layers. I don’t know what I’ll do at this point. They did well on 50/50 layer/grower. I just don’t know what to do. Other people do all flock with no problems. Some people feed all kinds of treats with no problems. I just don’t get it. I’m trying really hard to do the right thing for my birds.

 

[azygous]

I missed seeing your thread last night. Dorothy definitely has a problem that needs treating. When a shell-less egg appears intact, it's not a crisis, but calcium citrate needs to be administered until the hen is laying normal eggs again. If a thin-shelled egg is discovered collapsed in the nest box, same thing, not a crisis, but she needs calcium therapy.

It's when you have evidence of an egg collapsing inside that I feel an antibiotic is necessary to head off possible infection caused by the yolk and the irritation of the tract. Once infection takes hold in the reproductive tract, it then becomes a life threatening situation, and if the hen doesn't die, as you realize, it can mean a case of EYP slowly killing her.

I treat this with amoxicillin. I suggest you use it for Dorothy and give her the full ten day treatment.

I've been feeding all flock feed for ten years and have had only two instances where eggs have collapsed inside the hen. I can't say I've seen any problem with my eggs being of poor quality because of not feeding layer. Of course, as my hens are laying regularly into their sixth, seventh, and sometimes eighth year, occasionally, an egg will be a little thin-shelled. I had this problem with Lilith, my eleven-year old SLW two years ago when she was nine and still trying to lay. She was the only one of two that I ever had to treat with an antibiotic due to an egg collapsing inside her. It was her final egg, but she's still spry and leading a normal life for an ancient hen.

 

[azygous]

Awesome! Dorothy rocks!

 

[azygous]

If you are reasonably certain the egg collapsed inside of her, yes, I would go ahead and do the amoxy. You can't go wrong following @casportpony 's recommended dosage.

Whether she's behaving normally at present is immaterial. You're not treating an active infection but getting ahead of it. In my view, when egg yolk is present in the reproductive tract, it can act as a bacteria growing medium, so I consider it a foregone conclusion that bacteria will start growing in the yolk medium immediately and given the almost certain probability that the collapsing egg produced irritation in the tract that can quickly produce inflammation, I feel an antibiotic is justified in order to stay ahead of a situation that has a high probability of developing into a reproductive tract infection.

 

[azygous]

When you suspect even a slight possibility of infection from a possible collapsed egg, I feel it's a no brainer to do the antibiotic.

We are not talking about using antibiotics irresponsibly as a general preventative. It's no different than going to the ER with an injury and being given an antibiotic. Last year I had a diagnostic surgical procedure and was given an antibiotic as a preventative although I had no infection. This is no different.

 

[azygous]

Just coming back to this thread and catching up.

Dorothy appears pert, perky and sassy and past her crisis. I think what she was experiencing is something I've observed in every hen I've seen lay a soft egg. And that's a sort of phantom sensation of needing to still lay an egg after passing a shell-less egg.

The hen will go back to the nest and sit sometimes for an hour without producing anything. Then she will go back to her normal routine. Almost always she will lay a normal egg from then on.

 

[micstrachan]