Broody hen with digestive issues? Please help!

[raisingthelma]

Hi all, one of my hens was broody (showing all signs - plucked chest feathers, laying in the box all day/overnight, squealing when I tried to pick her up, fluffing up real big, etc.), so I tried breaking her in a crate. It worked, she is no longer broody BUT while she was in the crate, her poop went from normal the first day in the crate to a milky whitish yellow liquid for days 2 and 3 in the crate. There are some very small greenish brown droppings in the liquid poops. Is this from the stress of putting her in a crate separated from the other hens? She wasn't eating much at all so maybe that? Or is it something else? Is there anything I can do to support her now that she's back with the flock? She has no signs of illness otherwise - she isn't into eating the layer feed yet but happily pecks at the coop ground and eats what she finds, eating scratch/some scrambled eggs, she's drinking some water, and her tail is perky as normal. Her energy seems a little low, but she is not lethargic by any means. Does it take a couple days to recover from being broody or something? Newbie here so I just don't have the experience to know!

 

[Eggcessive]

It sounds like she will be okay. When they are strongly broody, their metabolism and crop slows down, so they don’t need a lot of food. Since she is eating the egg and scratch, it sounds like she will be getting enough to eat as time goes by. My chickens will usually go for watery chicken feed and scrambled egg, so I would offer some fresh a couple of times a day.

 

[raisingthelma]

It sounds like she will be okay. When they are strongly broody, their metabolism and crop slows down, so they don’t need a lot of food. Since she is eating the egg and scratch, it sounds like she will be getting enough to eat as time goes by. My chickens will usually go for watery chicken feed and scrambled egg, so I would offer some fresh a couple of times a day.

Thank you, @Eggcessive , for your feedback as always. That's good to hear. I'll try the watery feed idea. I added some water to her eggs, and she went for that too.

 

[raisingthelma]

It sounds like she will be okay. When they are strongly broody, their metabolism and crop slows down, so they don’t need a lot of food. Since she is eating the egg and scratch, it sounds like she will be getting enough to eat as time goes by. My chickens will usually go for watery chicken feed and scrambled egg, so I would offer some fresh a couple of times a day.

Hi @Eggcessive - one more question for you if you don't mind - how long do you think it will take before she resumes normal eating and drinking after "breaking" her broodiness? Yesterday she ate some eggs and drank some water, but today, she doesn't want anything. She didn't want oatmeal, eggs, or water when I presented it. She is officially back to roosting on the bar with the other chickens and not brooding in the boxes so that's great! Her noises are not back to normal yet. She still makes little chirping sounds when she hears my voice instead of her normal clucking. Lastly, her crop has some food in it, doesn't feel full all the way, but it's not empty. She seems to not be emptying it fully since Friday (hence the liquidy poops). I have massaged it, but I assume that it is just slowed down due to being broody and the whole metabolism thing. Is there a point at which I should be worried? How long should this take for her to be completely back to normal?

 

[Shadrach]

It can take quite a while. My last broody was still feeding the chicks a week after the had properly feathered and didn't start eating what I call properly until the chicks were over 5 months old. Yep, I was a bit concerend but she had food in her crop at roost time and didn't appear ill in any way.
Pure conjecture, but the hen gets set to feed almost everything she finds to the chicks. It seems to be part biological. It also accounts for the unusual sounds she makes (chick talk perhaps).
If she's not laying eggs and not having to expend energy on feeding chicks her nutritional requirements are considerably less.

 

[raisingthelma]

It can take quite a while. My last broody was still feeding the chicks a week after the had properly feathered and didn't start eating what I call properly until the chicks were over 5 months old. Yep, I was a bit concerend but she had food in her crop at roost time and didn't appear ill in any way.
Pure conjecture, but the hen gets set to feed almost everything she finds to the chicks. It seems to be part biological. It also accounts for the unusual sounds she makes (chick talk perhaps).
If she's not laying eggs and not having to expend energy on feeding chicks her nutritional requirements are considerably less.

Thank you, @Shadrach - I broke her over the course of 3 days, but on day 2/3 she developed a yellowish whitish milky diarrhea with some small chunks of green poop in it. She is eating/drinking VERY little, so I assume it's due to this. Since she's roosting regularly as of last night, I hope that she resumes normal eating and pooping soon too.

 

[Shadrach]

You could try offering her a small amount of fish or meat, cooked I would suggest. Not many chickens can resist a bit of vintage cheddar cheese and most I've known like broken into small pieces walnuts. No more than half a walnut per bird. The walnut will give her a methionine amino acid boost which may help if her diet range is limited and she's not eating commercial feed.
It may be of some comfort to know that not all a chicken eats goes to their crops; they can send food straight to their gizzard, so the state of her crop may not be indicative of the volume she's consumed throughout the day.
A further option overall is to have her out foraging. If you have mixed vegitation, borders, scrub, any ground that isn't managed, take her for a supervised forage for an hour.

 

[Eggcessive]

When I am breaking a broody, usually in summer, I offer moisten chicken feed, a few sunflower kernels, tuna, and scrambled eggs, but just a bit and rotate them. I break them on the ground in a large 7x8 pen. They stay on the roost a lot the first 2 days, but then they do get into the food by the third and fourth days.

 

[raisingthelma]

When I am breaking a broody, usually in summer, I offer moisten chicken feed, a few sunflower kernels, tuna, and scrambled eggs, but just a bit and rotate them. I break them on the ground in a large 7x8 pen. They stay on the roost a lot the first 2 days, but then they do get into the food by the third and fourth days.

@Eggcessive good to know! She's was in the crate for 2 days before I put her back with the other hens. She is roosting again with them but eating has yet to resume to normal. But it sounds like that is normal. Crossing my fingers it's in the next couple day so I can stop worrying about her! She ate some eggs and scratch yesterday, but today wasn't interested in a single thing I brought out. (she could have eaten or drank water when I wasn't there but doubtful) Today would have been day 3 of breaking her broodiness, but she does seem happier with the other hens and she's not trying to sleep in the box anymore, so I'd like to keep her with her sisters. She seems happier. It's hard because it's winter in Minnesota, so I don't have enough equipment to keep additional water and food thawed... so when she was in the crate, I was constantly going out there to freshen up her food and give her water that wasn't either ice cold or frozen. I'm grateful to know though that it's normal for them to roost most of the first couple days before eating again. Thanks for all the insights! Hopefully have good news in the next couple days. Can't imagine it's anything else other than broodiness seeing as the rest of the flock is healthy.

 

[raisingthelma]

You could try offering her a small amount of fish or meat, cooked I would suggest. Not many chickens can resist a bit of vintage cheddar cheese and most I've known like broken into small pieces walnuts. No more than half a walnut per bird. The walnut will give her a methionine amino acid boost which may help if her diet range is limited and she's not eating commercial feed.
It may be of some comfort to know that not all a chicken eats goes to their crops; they can send food straight to their gizzard, so the state of her crop may not be indicative of the volume she's consumed throughout the day.
A further option overall is to have her out foraging. If you have mixed vegitation, borders, scrub, any ground that isn't managed, take her for a supervised forage for an hour.

Thank you @Shadrach !! She wasn't interested in any of the food I brought out (including cheese, which weirdly enough none of my other hens were either... they usually eat anything), but I did let her forage in some of the dead grass in the yard (it's winter in Minnesota, USA), and she liked pecking around. She even ate some dead grass and some bugs she found. I will probably let her forage again tomorrow, fresh air seems good for both people and chickens alike. It's good to know about the crop, that makes me feel better. As a first time chicken mama, all of this is so new and anything out of the ordinary tends to be concerning, so I appreciate your insights immensely!