What are the chances?

[ButtersMama]

We have eight chickens that are three years old one recently died to what we thought was egg bound this happened to a chicken years ago and it seemed like the same thing we did try to save her with the warm bath and tums. Anyway another chicken is acting the same way now I’m thinking it may be an illness in the coop and not egg bound. How can I tell?

 

[azygous]

It's unlikely to be "an illness in the coop". Or at least, not one you can scrub out of existence.

Reproductive issues are notoriously difficult to identify and deal with. Egg binding might be one of the easier ones to detect, though.

Behavior is pretty explicit. A hen having a problem getting an egg out will behave by slowing down to being a walking zombie. She walks in slow motion, dispenses with all the typical quick chicken body language, and will often spend time on the nest without producing anything.

Her butt feathers will often be wet from the fluids being diverted from the cecum, and it may have a bad odor. Her tail will often be held low and flat.

Instead of Tums, which is calcium carbonate and harder to digest and absorb, use this.

One tablet directly into the beak, followed up each day with another as long as the crisis endures.

 

[ButtersMama]

Thank you so much! I appreciate the time you took to help me

 

[Dhkoenig]

It's unlikely to be "an illness in the coop". Or at least, not one you can scrub out of existence.

Reproductive issues are notoriously difficult to identify and deal with. Egg binding might be one of the easier ones to detect, though.

Behavior is pretty explicit. A hen having a problem getting an egg out will behave by slowing down to being a walking zombie. She walks in slow motion, dispenses with all the typical quick chicken body language, and will often spend time on the nest without producing anything.

Her butt feathers will often be wet from the fluids being diverted from the cecum, and it may have a bad odor. Her tail will often be held low and flat.

Instead of Tums, which is calcium carbonate and harder to digest and absorb, use this. View attachment 3093519

One tablet directly into the beak, followed up each day with another as long as the crisis endures.

You can put a pill that big into their beak and they will swallow it?

 

[azygous]

Try it. You'll be amazed.

 

[Dhkoenig]

Try it. You'll be amazed.

You you have to pick her up and sort-of pry her beak open like you do with syringe or do you just offer it to them? She gets super stressed and puts up a fight when I try to get her beak open and that is bad for her injury. Ughhhhh - why? LOL