What is this. . . I found in a nesting box next to an egg

[LaurieJane]

Hello, I found this in one of my nesting boxes next to an egg. It is cold here in the PNW, during the last 24 hours we had a low of 28 degrees, and up to 40 degrees today. All of my hens seem to be okay. Did my chicken thow up and this is the frozen result?

Please advise, and thank you!

 

[nuthatched]

Lash material, one of your girls had a reproductive infection.

 

[Kiki]

Lash egg is correct....infection.
What do you feed your birds?

 

[LaurieJane]

we feed our hens a 16% layer feed purchased at Tractor Supply. They get a bowl of scratch grains with a cupful of black fly grubs in a seperate bowl as a "snack". They also eat bugs, worms, etc they find in their fenced in pasture.

 

[LaurieJane]

Thank you everyone for the term lash egg. My husband and I had never heard of it, and we are rolling into our 4th year of owning hens. Needless to say, we are freaked out and have plans to do a thorough coop cleaning tomorrow in our snowy 30 degree weather.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

What breed(s) are your hens? Salpingitis is not caused by a lack of cleanliness as far as I know. Some breeds are just more prone to it. Let me check with one of our Educators, but if I were you I would not run out in a blizzard to clean the coop.

@Eggcessive?

Also, do a search here on the site for "salpingitis," there should be articles on it.

 

[Eggcessive]

Salpingitis and lash egg material is a common disease in hens. Lash eggs can be inside the abdomen, inside the oviduct causing it to become very large, and some lash eggs will come out in the nest box or droppings. Coops should be kept as dry as possible. Keeping your nest boxes clean and dry with fresh bedding, and add more nest boxes if needed. Here are a couple of good articles to read about it:
https://www.bhwt.org.uk/hen-health/health-problems/lash-eggs-salpingitis/

https://extension.umaine.edu/publications/2114e/

 

[Kiki]

we feed our hens a 16% layer feed purchased at Tractor Supply. They get a bowl of scratch grains with a cupful of black fly grubs in a seperate bowl as a "snack". They also eat bugs, worms, etc they find in their fenced in pasture.

I don't know what your hen's look like but I can tell you that feeding scratch and grubs daily is probably causing them to have a lot of fat on thier insides. Hens that are overweight get these type of infections. I would suggest stop feeding all snacks and only feed the pelleted or crumbled type layer feed from now on.

 

[LaurieJane]

What breed(s) are your hens? Salpingitis is not caused by a lack of cleanliness as far as I know. Some breeds are just more prone to it. Let me check with one of our Educators, but if I were you I would not run out in a blizzard to clean the coop.

@Eggcessive?

Also, do a search here on the site for "salpingitis," there should be articles on it.

Hey I figured out how to use the reply function! We have a mixture of hens, we let the grandkids pick out the chicks every spring! We have 5 leghorns, 3 black alsorps, 2 lakenvelders, 2 salmon faverolles, 2 cream legbars, 2 starlight green eggers, 2 amercuanas, 1 each of a welsummer, rhode island red, barred rock, and blue sapphire. That is a total of 22 hens. Over the last 3 years we have lost 1 to a predator, 1 to vehicular poutricide, 1 ran away, and 7 to what we think is being egg-bound/disease.

With chicken math, we are planning to pick up another 8 this spring. We built a lovely Cluck Mahal that my husband thinks will easily house 40 hens.