Suspected lash egg; treatment?

[Sally PB]

I found this on the poop board at clean up time today, so it was probably laid last night.

I'm pretty sure I know who laid it.
I cut it open. It's mostly empty, like a soft shelled egg, but the left end had some goo in it.
Another picture. I cut off the left end; it's the triangular piece on the upside down "f". The yellowish jelly stuff was what was inside. It's slimy and the consistency of egg white, so maybe that's what it is...? Or is it pus that is not cheesy yet?

She's a 2 year old Black Australorp. I have seen her standing with her tail level, not up like the other hens' tails, but then later it'll be back up. No head pulled in, no penguin stance.

I have some 250 mg capsules of amoxicillin. I have this that I copied from another post by @azygous.

"The dose is 250mg per day for ten days. But if you have the time and energy, breaking that into two doses of 125mg each given one in the morning and the second late in the day is better.

If you find amoxy at TSC, they only carry 500mg caps. You would need to open them up and divide them anyway. It begins to get more inconvenient, but I figured a way to make it easier after you divide up the doses into loose powder.

I take a bite-size piece of bread and dip it in olive oil. Then I sop up the dose with it, being sure to get every grain. Then, because the powder is very bitter, I sprinkle a little sugar on it. This way, the chicken will eagerly take the dose right from your hand, and the sugar makes it so they will eagerly take future doses, as well."

Is this a good course of action?

Thanks, everyone.

 

[Eggcessive]

That looks more like an egg membrane. She may have had an egg burst inside, and the contents came out and were eaten. The amoxicillin may help and you can get Aqua Mox online for fish. I would give human caclium tablets with vitamin D3 for several days to see it it helps the eggs have a shell. Do you feed mostly layer feed and have crushed oyster shell available in a separate container?

 

[azygous]

Hold off on the antibiotic. That looks more like an egg membrane formed on sloughed tissue from the oviduct, not lash infectious material.

Instead, treat her with calcium citrate for the next few days and monitor her egg for shell quality. They could revert to normal in a day, or take several days on calcium citrate to get a normal shell.

 

[azygous]

I don't see any yolk material. But if you saw any yolk stains on her butt feathers or if you see yolk in her stools, then you'd need to start the antibiotic to counter bacteria from broken yolk.

 

[Sally PB]

Thank you!!

I just looked, and she doesn't have any yolk mess on her bum, and I saw no evidence of yolk on anyone's face.

I also checked my calcium citrate. It has magnesium and zinc in it as well. Is that ok, or should I go get plain? I got that stuff for me, but I'll happily share with my girls.

 

[Sally PB]

Do you feed mostly layer feed and have crushed oyster shell available in a separate container?

I feed a 20% all flock with both egg shells and oyster shells (separately) on the side.

 

[azygous]

You can use the calcium you have, but next shopping trip get the hens their own citrate with D3.

 

[Sally PB]

Gotcha! Thank you again.

 

[Sally PB]

Thanks for the advice.

I'll give Lark (the hen) calcium for a few days and see what happens.

I will also try to remember to add a follow up post for any future readers, so they know how this issue resolved.

 

[Sally PB]

I found another really soft shelled egg on the poop board two days after the first one. It was definitely egg, not lash egg, so thank goodness for that. And nobody ate it either. Yay.

Since my girls aren't cuddly chickens, it was a little hard to get Lark to take a pill. She ran around with it, the others chasing, of course. Then she dropped it, pecked at it, and others rushed in to peck it. Nobody ate it.

Switch to different plan. I got a new pill, licked it, rolled it in sugar, and she gobbled it down. That worked once.

The next day, I tried cutting the pill in half, to see if that helped. I rolled it up in a small piece of bread, but she just ran around with it again. Eventually, she got half a pill down.

No soft shelled dropped that night. Or the next. Or since.

Should this happen again, the hell with trying to get a hen to "take" a pill. I'll go in at night, pull her beak open, and pop it in. I'm sure that's what I should have done to begin with. I thought I could turn it into a treat of some kind, but they thought it was a game. Silly chickens. Silly me too.