Sickly Easter Egger Hen

[HomespunChicken]

I have a 18 month old hen who I thought was maybe egg bound this morning but she made her way into the nesting box and eventually laid an egg.
I found her this morning in the run standing still with her tail down. She wasn't going after the kitchen scraps with everyone else, she was just being still closing her eyes periodically. I did notice her poop and it was just brownish and watery. I am in Southern California and its been hot so water poop like that isn't too abnormal this time of year.
She's on an all flock feed with oyster shell on the side. Her crop has felt empty this morning so far.
After laying the egg in the nesting box she hopped onto the waterer and is just standing there still and closing her eyes. I dont know what else to do or look at in terms of assessing her or helping her.
Advice?

 

[azygous]

This may be your first experience with a hen having two eggs coming own the oviduct at the same time. Usually, one is shell-less and much more difficult to pass.

Give her a calcium citrate tablet or a Tums. She needs at minimum 500mg of concentrated calcium to stimulate contractions. Move her to a hospital crate in a quiet place. Put her on an old towel so you can easily see what comes out. If the egg is broken, instead of intact, she would then require and oral antibiotic to head off infection caused by the broken yolk.

In California, you will need to wrangle a prescription from a vet. Or enlist an out-of-state friend to act as your smuggler and have them order amoxicillin from this place. https://www.kvsupply.com/item/aqua-mox-250mg-capsules-100-count/P06184/ This would also be necessary if what she has is a bacterial infection from some other source. One 250mg capsule once a day for ten days.

Once she passes all the egg remains, she will suddenly be transformed back into her old self.

This is only the most likely cause of her behavior. It could be something else such as an intestinal infection.

 

[HomespunChicken]

This may be your first experience with a hen having two eggs coming own the oviduct at the same time. Usually, one is shell-less and much more difficult to pass.

Give her a calcium citrate tablet or a Tums. She needs at minimum 500mg of concentrated calcium to stimulate contractions. Move her to a hospital crate in a quiet place. Put her on an old towel so you can easily see what comes out. If the egg is broken, instead of intact, she would then require and oral antibiotic to head off infection caused by the broken yolk.

In California, you will need to wrangle a prescription from a vet. Or enlist an out-of-state friend to act as your smuggler and have them order amoxicillin from this place. https://www.kvsupply.com/item/aqua-mox-250mg-capsules-100-count/P06184/ This would also be necessary if what she has is a bacterial infection from some other source. One 250mg capsule once a day for ten days.

Once she passes all the egg remains, she will suddenly be transformed back into her old self.

This is only the most likely cause of her behavior. It could be something else such as an intestinal infection.

Thank you so much for the reply, I didnt update since there was no replies but she ended up passing the same day as this post.
After I posted this a friend suggested soaking her even if she had laid thinking it may help relax her but by the time I got the tub ready I came out and she was laying under the waterer. I wet down a sectioned off area of the run and put her in it with a dish pan of water to her side maybe six inches away. I came back out maybe ten minutes after and she had died with her face in the pie pan of water

 

[azygous]

Some hens with this will die of sudden death syndrome. I'm so sorry you lost her.

Putting a shell on and egg draws heavily on calcium reserves, and if they are low, calcium in the blood is drawn from. This can result in a heart attack.

This is why I keep a bottle of this

in my run at all times. In fact, just last night I used it on a hen that was spending too long in the nest box without producing an egg. She also had the typical watery/mucous discharge from her vent signalling a stuck egg.

Often a stuck egg got stuck because it lacks a shell, and it can be accompanied by a second egg, complicating things further. A calcium tablet immediately upon discovering a hen in crisis can save her life. The calcium citrate pictured above acts quickest of any form of calcium, and the vitamin D helps absorption even more.