Sick chicken; advice appreciated

[baldrick]

My ex batts all died pretty suddenly, and unfortunately that sounded typical :-(

[TomHB]

Hello all,

I just wanted to thank you all again for your advice, ideas and kind words. Mum is home now and all is well.

Just in case anyone else comes across this thread to figure out problems with their own chickens, I also wanted to post a quick update with things that only came to light after talking to mum.

It was a different chicken that had been laying the soft eggs. That problem had been fixed by giving them additional grit. I hadn't noticed because I don't know which chicken lays which eggs and the sick chicken got sick at roughly the same time as the other started laying normally again.

The chicken that died had not laid for quite a while and had been ill longer than I thought. Mum said she had been behaving oddly for a while. She had been doing the standing still a lot thing, and when going out of the hutch she stuck close to the other two. She had appeared to get better, though, so mum didn't tell me about it before she went away.

My hunch is that she was eggbound and that it was already too late by the time I realized she was ill. I have now relayed your advice to mum so that she knows what to try if it happens again to the others. With the benefit of hindsight it should be easier to pick it up earlier and help the chicken more than I could this one.

Thank you all again

Tom.

[Suechooks]

Thanks for keeping us informed Tom. It must make you feel better that she was reaching her natural end. I think that's the worst of looking after someone else's birds!