Wondering if someone could shed some light on a few issues with my one Welsummer. I am bordering on stressing out at this point ... but in thinking clearly, maybe I shouldn't be ... anyway - here goes.
1) My girl ( Mandy Welsummer ) is a very very large chicken.
2) She has been moulting ( Victoria, Australia ) since very early winter, and still seems to be losing feathers, although her backside has grown back some nice down. It is now well into Spring.
One side of her feather loss has returned, but the other side ( under the left wing ) has not ... she is quite bare there. To me she has been having a hard time during a very slow moult.
3) She is approx. 13 months old, and for 7 months, has been 'spraying' large quantities of poop with a great deal of liquid in it, once she's allowed out of their coop in the morning.
4) Her overnight droppings where she sleeps are perfectly shaped and very normal.
5) The colour of her eggs has dropped off - to a very mild terra-cotta - almost a lightish tan.
6) On a few occasions recently, she has mewed and softly clucked while sitting, but has produced nothing. Today she did the same thing.
7) She has laid one extremely oddly shaped egg recently - which ( believe it or not ) has wrinkles in the shell - obviously the wrinkles happened somewhere along the line and the shell hardened retaining those wrinkles ... it is the strangest looking egg - and very very big, with one side kind of flattened. I think she had a really hard time with that one.
8 ) I have been giving her and her friend Molly ( an RIR ) some extra black oily sunflower seeds to help her lay eggs.
9 ) She is laying about 1 egg every 2 - 3 days now, but has been laying 6 out of 7 days all through the winter ??? ..
10) She eats like a pig, and I wonder if I am overfeeding her with my own recipe mash ( good chicken stuff ) 3 times a week, plus their layer pellets all day, and free ranging. Is overfeeding possible ?
11) I don't think she has gone broody as she is off the nest way too often for that.
12) Her comb remains bright red, although today I noticed it was ever so slightly paler than usual. ( I believe combs can brighten and lessen in colour depending on a variety of things ). Not too worried about that.
Main question .... is she behaving like Welsummers do on occasion, or have I reason to be concerned. I had a feel around her vent late this afternoon - and she doesn't seem to have anything stuck ( like a large egg ) there. She does tend to lay whoppers when she lays.
Her behaviour is still normal - for her. She is an aggressive bird, and would kill my little Aussie Araucana, given half the chance. She's had a couple of opportunities to do that, and has had a really nasty go at her. ( because Mindy Araucana grew her wings back, and flew over the run separation, into Mandy's run ( wings now re-clipped ), and on another occasion got out of her run to join the others free ranging which was a very big mistake on Mindy's part ).
Just wondering ..... has anyone any ideas - particularly about Welsummer behaviour and whether they can get too big, and try to lay eggs too large ?
Thanks in anticipation for any thoughts on the subject ...
Cheers ............ AB
