Monday, April 4, 2016

There's something white coming out of my hen's vent

aka something weird coming out of my hen's butt



I found one of my hens with something weird coming out of her vent.  It turned out to be the outside of a soft shelled egg that had broken.

I am not an expert, but here's what I did for my hen (my hen is fairly tame):

1) I gave her a warm bath for about 10 minutes (I learned later it should be closer to 20).  She liked the bath and just sat there.

1) I donned a glove and put ky jelly on a finger. I gently put the finger in my chicken's vent.  Supposedly you want to feel in and up about 2 inches.  I didn't feel anything, so I figured the egg was gone and there wasn't another one stuck.  If I had felt something, I would have given her half a tums mixed in yogurt and another warm bath.

2) I put Preperation H on the glove finger and gently rubbed it on the inside of her vent.  Straining can make things swell and hard to pass eggs.

3) I blow dried her so she wasn't wet.

4) I mixed half a tums with some yogurt and fed it to her.  Soft shell eggs are harder to pass.  I wanted to get her extra calcium so she could get some egg shells on those eggs.  I also mixed in a drop of poli-vi-sol (no iron) to get her some extra vitamin D to help with calcium uptake.  I also switched my layers off of all flock and put them on a regular layer pellet with 20% protein.

5) I stuck her in the (dry) bath tub (too lazy to get out the dog crate) for about an hour to keep an eye on her.  She seemed to be acting normal.

6) I didn't keep her separate from the flock, but now I wish I had.  It would have been easier to tell if she pooping normally.  It also would have been easier to tell if she was still laying soft shelled eggs.  (The next day, she laid another soft shelled egg in the run and all the other chickens ate it.  I really don't want my other chickens learning eggs are full of egg.)