Hi there chicken folk! I'm having a bit of a dilemma. I have a black australorp hen named Fanny who is five years old. Though she's about middle aged, she normally seems quite healthy and vibrant. Howeeeever, she has laid two soft shelled eggs recently, and she has also been seen having a bit of a messy bum often and seems tired. :^( This isn't normal for her. She was an adoptee and I knew of her health from her previous home, and she had no problems then. Since I've taken her in, I've made sure that she gets the good amount of outdoors (free ranging) time she deserves, and I always make sure that she and the rest of her 3 chicken flock have proper nutrition and water supplied. The others I've adopted have been laying on and off just fine, with no runny poop or difficulties otherwise. I'm worried!
To get a better picture of what I'm dealing with, lemme run down the past two times I've had an ordeal: I noticed that Fanny had returned to the coop and had been staying in there for what seemed like an excess of time, so I checked in on her. She was sitting where she'd normally lay in the corner, and when I lifted her up, I noticed she had a lot of runny poop on her bum feathers! She seemed to be straining a bit to get something out constantly, so I figured she must be having a hard time passing an egg. I did the usual ole trick to help her out: I ran a warm bath with some epsom salt and let her soak for a while, dried her off, and gave her some oats with an additional bit of calcium sprinkled on em. I let her be in the sick bay for a bit, and before I was even prepared, she'd already passed the egg on her own! It was nearly fully formed unlike some soft shelled eggs I'd seen, just didn't have enough calcium on it to properly form a shell. She had recovered by the next morning and was back to her usual self. Not bad at all! This last time was a bit different, however, and happened around two weeks later. She did the same thing as last time - she tried to lay, had no success doing so, and was straining. I did the same process as before. It took a bit longer, and the egg was in papery pieces, but I was able to help her to get the soft egg out. There was a good bit of yolk on the floor, which has happened to a few of my girls from time to time and never fails to worry me. I checked around in her vent and it seemed that we had gotten everything out, including yolk, but she continued to strain afterwards aaand continued to have runny poop. I kept her indoors with me overnight and checked on her in the morning and found her crop was still full. She had had watery poop all night, too. She strained for part of that day, but then stopped. She's been able to eat and drink things just fine, but with less appetite than usual.
In the 2 days since, she's been slow and a bit hoarse, no longer straining but still having issues with watery poop... Her crop sometimes will empty properly by the morning, but today it hasn't. I have administered tetracycline to her twice orally, once every other day, and I don't think it's doing much. I know it can cause diarrhea, but she still seems lethargic in addition to that, so I think that it's just being ineffective period. I had also given her some water with Wazine in it today, just in case she's got a bad case of worms somehow. I haven't checked her vent since the last time, but I don't think it's an egg stuck as far as I can tell right now. I'm kinda at my wits end with this! I know I can get her well, I'm just not sure what I'm dealing with or what to use to help. :^( I don't wanna lose her because I'm taking too long to figure out the proper way to treat her, so please, if anyone has any advice or knows exactly what to do, I'd really appreciate the help! Thanks for taking the time to read all this as well.
To get a better picture of what I'm dealing with, lemme run down the past two times I've had an ordeal: I noticed that Fanny had returned to the coop and had been staying in there for what seemed like an excess of time, so I checked in on her. She was sitting where she'd normally lay in the corner, and when I lifted her up, I noticed she had a lot of runny poop on her bum feathers! She seemed to be straining a bit to get something out constantly, so I figured she must be having a hard time passing an egg. I did the usual ole trick to help her out: I ran a warm bath with some epsom salt and let her soak for a while, dried her off, and gave her some oats with an additional bit of calcium sprinkled on em. I let her be in the sick bay for a bit, and before I was even prepared, she'd already passed the egg on her own! It was nearly fully formed unlike some soft shelled eggs I'd seen, just didn't have enough calcium on it to properly form a shell. She had recovered by the next morning and was back to her usual self. Not bad at all! This last time was a bit different, however, and happened around two weeks later. She did the same thing as last time - she tried to lay, had no success doing so, and was straining. I did the same process as before. It took a bit longer, and the egg was in papery pieces, but I was able to help her to get the soft egg out. There was a good bit of yolk on the floor, which has happened to a few of my girls from time to time and never fails to worry me. I checked around in her vent and it seemed that we had gotten everything out, including yolk, but she continued to strain afterwards aaand continued to have runny poop. I kept her indoors with me overnight and checked on her in the morning and found her crop was still full. She had had watery poop all night, too. She strained for part of that day, but then stopped. She's been able to eat and drink things just fine, but with less appetite than usual.
In the 2 days since, she's been slow and a bit hoarse, no longer straining but still having issues with watery poop... Her crop sometimes will empty properly by the morning, but today it hasn't. I have administered tetracycline to her twice orally, once every other day, and I don't think it's doing much. I know it can cause diarrhea, but she still seems lethargic in addition to that, so I think that it's just being ineffective period. I had also given her some water with Wazine in it today, just in case she's got a bad case of worms somehow. I haven't checked her vent since the last time, but I don't think it's an egg stuck as far as I can tell right now. I'm kinda at my wits end with this! I know I can get her well, I'm just not sure what I'm dealing with or what to use to help. :^( I don't wanna lose her because I'm taking too long to figure out the proper way to treat her, so please, if anyone has any advice or knows exactly what to do, I'd really appreciate the help! Thanks for taking the time to read all this as well.
