Urgent!!! Red Star hen: lethargic after/before laying an egg, HELP!

[77horses]

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That's what Cinnamon had too; when she was about to lay her egg, she pooped a couple times. Waterer and yellow colored and her vent was frothy and swollen-looking. Seems like this is a popular issue with many people's hens.

 

[schellie69]

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That's what I was thinking. Where can I get some oyster shells? About how much is it to buy them?
My dad isn't too happy about it; he thinks of it as just spending more money on them and complains about the time when he had to buy wormer for them and lice/mite dust. Now I have to convince him that we need to get oyster shells for her; but he keeps disagreeing because he says chickens shouldn't get "special treatment and don't need a special diet". He thinks that it's spoiling them and other chicken owners don't buy them oyster shells and wormer and stuff.

Is this true?

Cinnamon is fine today. I don't know if she laid an egg because there was a mix of eggs from all our chickens and some were from yesterday so I couldn't tell which were hers.

Actually, she doesn't really get much cracked corn in the first place. Mostly the pellets. Once and a while she will get some of the fine cracked corn in her feed dish and sometimes will find some on the ground when free ranging.
And usually we add more corn to all the chicken's diet when it starts getting colder. I've been told that it's best to add more corn to their diet because it adds more fat and keeps them warm or something like that. So how can we give them more corn if she shouldn't be eating any more of it????
Thanks!

If your dad does not want to buy oyster shell save the shells from the chicken eggs and grind them up and give them to them you can add them to some scrambled egg or with yogurt (plain) and offer that to them at least once a week if not more, I do this with my chickens and it seems to work they are all laying really strong egg shell that would be my advice see that does not help even offering yogurt would help boost the calcium maybe print out some articles on the internet that show what a chicken needs as food and show them to your dad that might help in showing him what chickens need or go to the library and check out a book on basic chicken care to show what a chicken needs hope you get this figured out and your chicken gets better. just try adding calcium with egg shells and yogurt if that helps then you know it is a calcium problem and get the oyster shell then or just keep up with the egg shells and yogurt,

 

[OrpingtonManor]

Giving them oyster shell is not spoiling them. My DSO sees his chickens as livestock, not pets, and he still gives the chickens oyster shell. That was what he was taught about keeping chickens growing up. His family did nothing special for the chickens, but they still gave oyster shell. It's kind of like giving a salt lick to cattle. It's a mineral they need. Some need more, some need less. So, even though it's in many commercial feeds, it's still prudent to give it.

ETA -- Oyster shell is cheap. You can get it at the feed store.

 

[Tala]

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Exactly.

And yes Oyster shell is cheap you can get it at pretty much anywhere that sells chicken feed.