Egg withdrawal

[Stephine]

I have tried food coloring but not lipstick. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. "Not working" included experiences like marking the only two hens who laid green eggs, different color for each hen, and then getting a green egg with no food coloring on it. I knew I'd marked them both, so somehow it just didn't work. I've had other times I thought I applied the food coloring the same way, and I got marked eggs from that hen for almost a week before I had to re-apply it. I never did figure it out what the difference was.

If you aren't willing or able to separate her, and don't want to throw out all the eggs, you might try using two colors: mark her vent with one color, and all the other hens' vents with the other color. If you find her egg marked, great! You can eat all the other eggs that day. But if her egg does not get marked, at least you can eat any eggs that got marked with the other color (might not be all the eggs, but should be at least some of them.)

Great strategy, but I really do think that would increase the stress in the flock more than just separating a hen for a small while…

 

[NatJ]

Great strategy, but I really do think that would increase the stress in the flock more than just separating a hen for a small while…

OP said they didn't want to separate, so I was offering alternatives.

Of course throwing out all eggs is another alternative, but it didn't look like that was acceptable either.

In my experience it doesn't seem to stress a hen very much to just grab her off the roost in the dark, drip a bit of food coloring in her vent, and put her back. A headlamp or a helper with a flashlight is useful for seeing what you are doing, but I've had a few times I just carried one hen at a time into a lit building (house or garage) and then brought her back. It didn't seem to bother them too much, judging by the fact that their behavior and the amount of eggs did not change enough for me to notice.

 

[Stephine]

OP said they didn't want to separate, so I was offering alternatives.

Of course throwing out all eggs is another alternative, but it didn't look like that was acceptable either.

In my experience it doesn't seem to stress a hen very much to just grab her off the roost in the dark, drip a bit of food coloring in her vent, and put her back. A headlamp or a helper with a flashlight is useful for seeing what you are doing, but I've had a few times I just carried one hen at a time into a lit building (house or garage) and then brought her back. It didn't seem to bother them too much, judging by the fact that their behavior and the amount of eggs did not change enough for me to notice.

Oh, I know why you made the recommendation. I was more addressing the OP, because she didn’t want to stress her hen. I have a few easy going chickens in my flock, but everyone else would scream bloody murder (and maybe even the mellow ones) if I grabbed them off the roost and held them upside down to mess with their vent. And then going one by one through the whole flock… they would all scream themselves into a tizzy I fear. Also, if you go in at night to do the deed they all have all night to deposit large amounts of poop before laying their egg the next day and would probably lose most of the dye in the process - ?
Anyway… Depends on how many hens you have of course. With my 15 I know that would be too much for me!

 

[GardenDmpls]

Had a similar situation. Kept Molly in a dog crate. The tray made it easy to clean and I gave her a cardboard box to hide in (cut a door in the side) or sit on top of. Because she had an open leg injury, it was a cleaner situation than being in the coop. Put the crate in the corner of my room and when she went back to the coop she remained a really friendly hen.
Because of the new rules saying that the vet needed a special certificate (which my city vet didn't have) to prescribe antibiotics to "livestock", I was told that the chicken could never be used for eggs or meat. I looked up the recent research on when the antibiotics would clear the chicken's body (the USDA is very strict- they were measuring in terms of the number of molecules being undetectable). Looked up the time considered safe for Europe and Australia and it was two weeks. Hoping that at some point the USDA will realize that chickens (poultry) are ranked in the top ten most popular pets in the US and make it easier for them to get treatment when needed.

 

[NatJ]

if you go in at night to do the deed they all have all night to deposit large amounts of poop before laying their egg the next day and would probably lose most of the dye in the process - ?

I've done it at night. Sometimes it worked fine, and marked the eggs for several days afterward. Other times it didn't seem to work at all. I've tried it in the daytime too, with about the same results. At least in my case, I never did figure out what made the difference, except that day vs. night was not it.

Anyway… Depends on how many hens you have of course. With my 15 I know that would be too much for me!

I agree, 15 would be a lot! I don't actually know the size of OP's flock, but I was assuming smaller than your 15. (Of course my assumption could be very wrong!)