Weirdest of droppings - what is it?

[VlkStinu]

I've got some possibly bad news. The hen just finished her antibiotics yesterday and the discharge from her cloaca seems to be receding - even her behavior seems to be improved. However, I found today a new lash egg, freshly left on my porch and there were two hens from my original flock inspecting it and pecking on it. The hen I thought was the one who laid the lash egg was elsewhere, on the other side of the garden and I believe she was there for a while though I can't confirm it. Now I am afraid the lash egg was laid by completely different hen showing no other symptoms... And I can't do anything about it unless I catch her in the act... One of the hens inspecting the lash egg had a weird episode about 3 weeks ago, it was as if she was depressed, she was very apathetic and she was drinking excessively. This lasted just one day and happened all of a sudden. She was fine the next day. Could have this been some symptom of salpingitis? I know this is all shooting in the dark, but it's crazy to think there is a hen out there that has her clocks ticking and I can't do anything about it...

 

[BGcoop]

I’m sorry to hear that! I guess you could try isolating your hens into groups and watch for any more lash eggs and kind of work our who is doing it that way, but there is no guarantee you will get more and in the time frame needed to do anything about it.

 

[VlkStinu]

I’m sorry to hear that! I guess you could try isolating your hens into groups and watch for any more lash eggs and kind of work our who is doing it that way, but there is no guarantee you will get more and in the time frame needed to do anything about it. ☹

Yeah, I know... I will watch all the hens and keep an eye out for anything suspicious... I always inspect a freshly made dropping to see how that particular hen is doing, but I never caught anything suspicious. I saw some blood in the coop today though, so I suspect that was the hen with the salpingitis... It could still be this one hen I treated with antibiotics but I can't be 100% sure. So the only thing I can do now is to observe and wait.

 

[SulkyBantam]

Good luck.

 

[BGcoop]

Good luck !

 

[VlkStinu]

Thank you!

 

[VlkStinu]

So the antibiotics sadly didn't help. The discharge from cloaca is still there and the hen seems to be rather down in spirits... The vet said that another antibiotics round wouldn't help...

 

[BGcoop]

I’m sorry to hear that. Sometimes there just isn‘t much you can do.

 

[VlkStinu]

I’m sorry to hear that. Sometimes there just isn‘t much you can do.

Thank you... I know...

 

[VlkStinu]

I have great news! A few days ago, the hen that was laying the lash eggs made a miraculous recovery and started laying perfectly healthy eggs. The discharge from the cloaca improved a lot and though it's still there from time to time, she is looking much much healthier now. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw her laying again. I was worried that this was it... Another hen got sick during the winter as well, had the same symptoms as this other hen and I suspected the other lash eggs are laid by her. But she got much better too and started laying big healthy eggs as well. So I am over the moon as all of my six ex-battery hens are now doing great!

They were both treated with antibiotics which didn't seem to help - I was still finding lash eggs and the discharge from cloaca was still present. I started doing alternative medicine (energy healing) later on and I feel like it could've done something! Or maybe not, but that's not really important. I am just so glad they are doing well again! And spring is ahead!