Tweet
Hi,
Apologies for the long post, but one of my girls seems to be unwell and some details might help - I'd be grateful for any thoughts from you more experience folk...
I'm new to chicken keeping, so it may be nothing to worry about... anyway, I have 8 girls (3 RIR, 3 LS, and 2 Barnevelder). They have been laying for about 6 weeks, and started when roughly 24 weeks old. Until now, they have all been very lively and active birds - with plenty of space to run around and forage, etc.
I noticed on Tuesday night when I shut them up that one of the Barnies was camped out in the nest box rather than on the perches. The next day she seemed to be spending a lot of time in there. Indeed, she did not come out when I opened up the coop in the morning (nor did another that had joined her briefly to deposit her egg). I assumed she was just laying. At one point, some hours later, I had to remove her to get at the eggs, and she then ran around foraging and seemed fine for a bit. She was soon back in the nest box though, and I wondered if she might be egg bound (there had been a couple of large double yolkers over the past weeks, although I don't know who laid them - my parents were looking after them while I was on my hols, so I don't know what colour the eggs were).
Having tried a few things to improve her situation, I'm pretty sure that she laid an egg on Thursday - at least, there were two that by their colour I believe are from the Barnies, unless I was mistaken. In any event, a brief check (yuk!) suggested she was not egg bound, yet she still remained in the nest box.
Having removed her once again, she did run around a bit, but something about her didn't seem quite right. So, being new to this, and not wanting to take any chances, I popped along to the vet. The vet seemed to do a thorough check and couldn't find anything specifically wrong with her (although, the internal examination did yield a very nasty deposit on the table - and very smelly!). She recommended keeping her in isolation, so we quickly modified a large rabbit hutch to serve the purpose.
When we put her in on Thursday evening she produced another dropping, which I removed from the litter. Since then, I have observed her eat and drink only a little - to my beginners view, not much at all, and she has not yet produced any further droppings. For sure there is not so much space to move about, but she seems to just sit on the perch.
She looks fine - bright eyes, no discharges, feathers in good condition, bright comb, etc. But she just seems to mope around on the perch / in the nest box, not eating and drinking.
Anybody got any ideas what could be wrong with her? They have a fairly large area of ground to free range in - could she have eaten something that upset her?
thanks,
JV
Apologies for the long post, but one of my girls seems to be unwell and some details might help - I'd be grateful for any thoughts from you more experience folk...
I'm new to chicken keeping, so it may be nothing to worry about... anyway, I have 8 girls (3 RIR, 3 LS, and 2 Barnevelder). They have been laying for about 6 weeks, and started when roughly 24 weeks old. Until now, they have all been very lively and active birds - with plenty of space to run around and forage, etc.
I noticed on Tuesday night when I shut them up that one of the Barnies was camped out in the nest box rather than on the perches. The next day she seemed to be spending a lot of time in there. Indeed, she did not come out when I opened up the coop in the morning (nor did another that had joined her briefly to deposit her egg). I assumed she was just laying. At one point, some hours later, I had to remove her to get at the eggs, and she then ran around foraging and seemed fine for a bit. She was soon back in the nest box though, and I wondered if she might be egg bound (there had been a couple of large double yolkers over the past weeks, although I don't know who laid them - my parents were looking after them while I was on my hols, so I don't know what colour the eggs were).
Having tried a few things to improve her situation, I'm pretty sure that she laid an egg on Thursday - at least, there were two that by their colour I believe are from the Barnies, unless I was mistaken. In any event, a brief check (yuk!) suggested she was not egg bound, yet she still remained in the nest box.
Having removed her once again, she did run around a bit, but something about her didn't seem quite right. So, being new to this, and not wanting to take any chances, I popped along to the vet. The vet seemed to do a thorough check and couldn't find anything specifically wrong with her (although, the internal examination did yield a very nasty deposit on the table - and very smelly!). She recommended keeping her in isolation, so we quickly modified a large rabbit hutch to serve the purpose.
When we put her in on Thursday evening she produced another dropping, which I removed from the litter. Since then, I have observed her eat and drink only a little - to my beginners view, not much at all, and she has not yet produced any further droppings. For sure there is not so much space to move about, but she seems to just sit on the perch.
She looks fine - bright eyes, no discharges, feathers in good condition, bright comb, etc. But she just seems to mope around on the perch / in the nest box, not eating and drinking.
Anybody got any ideas what could be wrong with her? They have a fairly large area of ground to free range in - could she have eaten something that upset her?
thanks,
JV
For some reason I had it in my head that they wouldn't get broody so early :/ At least it was a cheap vet!
Comment