The Nuzzler laid 2 shell less eggs and other egg material today.

[Exopoulterer]

Lots of photos. All in edit: descending order of emergence except for the brown dish photo.

The Nuzzler is near 6 months old and recently started laying eggs that have been hard shelled, some hard to candle even. Her first confirmed egg was on October 4th but I think she really laid jer first on September 30th, then a similar shell less thing on Oct 1st. The confusing history is recorded in the How many eggs today thread on this site.

She laid a fine egg on the 16th and nothing the 17th but seemed unwell and just standing there with a certain posture for the end half of the day. Not interested in treats and Big Red picked on her a bit. I drenched her with 1ml of Nutridrench and took her inside into a crate for the night where she ate some wet mash made with Rooster booster.

She seemed just fine on the morning of the 18th so I brought her back out to the run. She spent some time in the nesting box without laying an egg then she pooped out a grape sized shell less egg with a poop in the run as I observed. It is the one in the jar cap and then in the cup with the lab film on it pictured. She was tail up, eating, drinking, and acting fine for the day.

Come today and she started acting off again and pooped out the small yellow thing by itself in the run and has been uncomfortable with the posture shown in a photo ever since. There is a photo of it in the cup and 2 photos of it opened. This one looks concerning but it has no smell. The contents are soft and creamy but could it be infected material?

After 5pm I went to pick up my daughter from work and had her help me prepare the crate and bring her in. She said Nuz was drinking but with that posture when she got her. At least not up against the wood as she tends to do when not feeling well. She proceeded to eat the mash made with her feed and Rooster booster. Seemed to enjoy the peace as no Big Red and no rain on the metal roof of the run. It had just rained hard before I picked up my daughter but slowed down. Still noisy out there with the metal roofs of run and coop.
I went right out to check for egg or material and found the softshell/shell less broken egg in the run right where she stood in front of the wood before, (laid in the 2 hours preceding her being brought inside, being off work the past 2 days and today I have been observing my 5 chickens closely since Nuz seemed unwell.)The rinsed, thick membrane is in the brown dish with the cups.
When I observed her and offered a blueberry she looked like she wanted it, pecked it one time and went to the back of the crate and strained. I thought poop at first but she laid the shell less egg shown in the photo under her. It is also the larger one in a disposable cup in the dish in the other photo. I was just about to soak her for the first time I was so scared, then she laid that. She ate 2 blueberries from my fingers right after.

She is still looking unwell but finally laid down. Nuz is used to roosting so I was surprised that she hunkered down in the crate.

Any advice on next steps is welcome as these are my first chickens and I love them.

Vet is not an option for me at this time but I have "fish" amoxicillin 500 capsules that I have kept on hand for emergencies and to treat the occasional abscess in the TNR cats I care for.

It works rapidly and well and has saved the lives of a few Toms with fight related abscesses before I got them fixed.

Should I start the amoxicillin now just in case? Does it even look infection related?

I would need to suspend it in water I guess. I usually add one capsule's contents with water in a graduated cylinder to make 5 ml of solution that is 100mg per ml. That needs to be shaken well every time I even draw some up as it is not too water soluble but it has still worked on cats.

Edit: Added a video of her after the second shell less egg in a couple hours and some poop photos in case they are helpful.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Do you know what breed she is?

 

[BigBlueHen53]

In the pic that ends with the numbers 4870, about 6th from the bottom, where there is a lumpish object in a clear plastic cup, what is the texture of that object? Is it firm, cheesy, soft like a soft-boiled egg, firm like a hard-boiled egg, crispy like a cookie, or ...?

 

[Exopoulterer]

Some kind of "Americana" or Whiting True Blue. Lays green and sometimes not as green blue eggs.

The girl at the feed store was not confident in knowing what was what when we got pullets from them. There were "Americana", barred rocks(kinda obvious), Jersey Giants, and when we got Nuz there was also a Whiting True Blue label on it.
We got her a few days later than the first 3 pullets as my daughter wanted to go get another one of her choice.

 

[Exopoulterer]

In the pic that ends with the numbers 4870, about 6th from the bottom, where there is a lumpish object in a clear plastic cup, what is the texture of that object? Is it firm, cheesy, soft like a soft-boiled egg, firm like a hard-boiled egg, crispy like a cookie, or ...?

It was a membrane and was soft. Some parts were creamy, maybe soft boiled egg on the runnier side. I sniffed it and it had no bad smell but still got scared and disposed of it right after. There are 2 photos of it opened. 1 that shows it with some white parts 5036 and the other where it was more opened up and started blending more 7372.

 

[Exopoulterer]

@BigBlueHen53

I will add photos of the thing I found on the coop on October 1st that I can only suspect but I am now more confident was hers.

It is kind of similar and was a membrane with 2 other membranes inside, one of which contained a bit of yellow. Photos of it whole and dissected:

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Okay, so may not have been a lash egg but I will tag an Educator or two who is more knowledgeable about these things than I am. Meanwhile I suggest giving her some extra calcium, preferably in the form of a calcium citrate + D3 tablet if you have any. Available at any store that sells vitamins/ supplements. Look for Citracal or its generic equivalent. Just pop one in her beak after pulling down on her wattles to open it. I usually do this at night when they're roosting, much easier than chasing and trying to catch during the day. Do you have oyster shell always available? Some need a little extra boost. Give her the calcium tablet every day for 5 - 7 days and see if it helps. Tags:
@Eggcessive, @azygous, @coach723

 

[Exopoulterer]

Okay, so may not have been a lash egg but I will tag an Educator or two who is more knowledgeable about these things than I am. Meanwhile I suggest giving her some extra calcium, preferably in the form of a calcium citrate + D3 tablet if you have any. Available at any store that sells vitamins/ supplements. Look for Citracal or its generic equivalent. Just pop one in her beak after pulling down on her wattles to open it. I usually do this at night when they're roosting, much easier than chasing and trying to catch during the day. Do you have oyster shell always available? Some need a little extra boost. Give her the calcium tablet every day for 5 - 7 days and see if it helps. Tags:
@Eggcessive, @azygous, @coach723

There is always oyster shell in its own cup in the run. She eats it quite a bit.

I feed them all Nutrena all flock pellets because I have a late developing pullet(I really hope) and a rooster.
I also baked some shells for them but may have crushed them too fine. I have only offered them twice and they were not as well received today as they were the first time.

I gave her a calcium/d3 on the 17th before doing the nutridrench. I gave again today and will definitely do it for a week now.

I wasn't sure what was wrong at first. Also, on the 17th when she started looking bad, I was going through and looking at everything to see if I could find out why. I found a clump of a moldy part of scratch treats towards the bottom of a new bag I bought a few days prior. I was feeding these to the chickens! I thought it was that and she was a goner but now I am not so sure. I also fed them half of a mini pumpkin that they were really tearing up but took the rest away when she looked sick.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'd start her on 300mg Calcium Citrate+D3 now, then once daily for a week.

I'd also go ahead and give the Amoxicillin. Dosing is 57mg per pound of weight given orally twice a day for 7-10days.
Figure out her dose or tell us how much she weighs.
Fish Mox in the capsules are not water soluble. An easy well to use it is to open the capsule, and put the powder into a "known" amount of something like Coconut Oil.
For Example: 500mg Amoxicillin powder into 1teaspoon coconut oil, divided out evenly. Roll each portion into a "pill" and put them in the freezer. Each "pill" would equal approx. 125mg. Adjust your portions or pills as needed.

I'd also look at her poop some more. To me, it looks like there may be a couple or few Tapeworm Proglottids. If that's the case, then deworm her with Praziquantel. You can find Equimax at TSC. Dosing is here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/tapeworms-that-wont-go-away.1130035/post-17456177

Provide Oyster Shell free choice. Giving back egg shells are great too, but it's a good idea to provide the OS too. If shell quality is lacking, so will what they get fed back.

 

[Exopoulterer]

I'd start her on 300mg Calcium Citrate+D3 now, then once daily for a week.

I'd also go ahead and give the Amoxicillin. Dosing is 57mg per pound of weight given orally twice a day for 7-10days.
Figure out her dose or tell us how much she weighs.
Fish Mox in the capsules are not water soluble. An easy well to use it is to open the capsule, and put the powder into a "known" amount of something like Coconut Oil.
For Example: 500mg Amoxicillin powder into 1teaspoon coconut oil, divided out evenly. Roll each portion into a "pill" and put them in the freezer. Each "pill" would equal approx. 125mg. Adjust your portions or pills as needed.

I'd also look at her poop some more. To me, it looks like there may be a couple or few Tapeworm Proglottids. If that's the case, then deworm her with Praziquantel. You can find Equimax at TSC. Dosing is here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/tapeworms-that-wont-go-away.1130035/post-17456177

Provide Oyster Shell free choice. Giving back egg shells are great too, but it's a good idea to provide the OS too. If shell quality is lacking, so will what they get fed back.





View attachment 4236067

Thank you! I could use help calculating and getting it into a solid form will be mch easier to administer! She weighs 4.59lbs as of now.

I just disturbed The Nuzzler to get her weight again because I couldn't believe she is the youngest and also the heaviest chicken I have. I weighed them all yesterday to attempt to nutridrench them on account of a food mishap. I discovered some clumps of mold in a new bag of treats I fed them for a couple of days. She was 4.56lbs yesterday.

Edit: Wait, is it ok to estimate and give 250mg? I think it comes to 261.63mg when her weight is multiplied with 57. If it will do, I will do...


Nobody got drenched that day but at least I got the weights. I gave up and gave it in some water that they didnt want. Nuz was the only one to drink a lot of that water as they had fresh water as a choice. Lol
Pills will be much easier to administer if I could make them! I hate syringing so much.