Sick hen

[alinas2010]

She was moving a little more this afternoon but still not back to normal. We just gave a bath and gave the calcium. Her vent maybe looks inflammed and she just had a very watery poop.

We have been having often broken eggs, just had another from a different hen. Can I give them all a calcium pill to help? They have access to oyster shell.

A calcium pill won’t hurt a laying hen given once when she doesn’t need it, but it could hurt long term if you give for a week or so and she doesn’t need it. If I were you, I wouldn’t give my whole flock calcium pills, but I would give your soft layer one for a few days. Generally it is a good idea to give 600 mg of calcium a day for about 5 days to the soft layer. I wouldn’t give the pills any longer than a week. Also cutting out all treats and ensuring they’re on layer feed will help.

As for your sick hen, are you able to feel an egg around her vent or abdomen? Palpating the outside, of course, not putting any hard pressure on her?

 

[Thomaswgordon]

A calcium pill won’t hurt a laying hen given once when she doesn’t need it, but it could hurt long term if you give for a week or so and she doesn’t need it. If I were you, I wouldn’t give my whole flock calcium pills, but I would give your soft layer one for a few days. Generally it is a good idea to give 600 mg of calcium a day for about 5 days to the soft layer. I wouldn’t give the pills any longer than a week. Also cutting out all treats and ensuring they’re on layer feed will help.

As for your sick hen, are you able to feel an egg around her vent or abdomen? Palpating the outside, of course, not putting any hard pressure on her?

I’m not sure if it’s been the same hen laying soft eggs this whole time or not. I’ll give her the pill for a couple days though. They’re just on regular feed with supplement oyster shell. I couldn’t feel anything noticeably hard just seemed little full.

 

[Thomaswgordon]

Update: she stayed separated in our garage for 24 hours. She got one calcium tab and the epsom bath. She’s back with her friends and has a nice bright red comb and appears to be moving nicely. We found one egg inside the coop with a messy poop on it, hoping it’s from her.

Thanks everyone for your help, I think we’re gonna try to move our oyster shell because currently it gets wet and hardens which may make it difficult for them to eat.

 

[LaFleche]

Update: she stayed separated in our garage for 24 hours. She got one calcium tab and the epsom bath. She’s back with her friends and has a nice bright red comb and appears to be moving nicely. We found one egg inside the coop with a messy poop on it, hoping it’s from her.

Thanks everyone for your help, I think we’re gonna try to move our oyster shell because currently it gets wet and hardens which may make it difficult for them to eat.

Thank you for the update.

Hopefully, she will make a full recovery with a few more days of additional calcium citrate tablets.

 

[Thomaswgordon]

Thank you for the update.

Hopefully, she will make a full recovery with a few more days of additional calcium citrate tablets.

I hope so, she didn’t get any yesterday because I was at work and my wife wasn’t able to get her to take it by herself.

 

[Thomaswgordon]

I think I’m going to try to give all the girls a calcium tab today and tomorrow just because of the random breaking eggs. And then we’ll just leave it at that and hopefully with the more dry oyster shell we’ll be good to go.