I need your help I’m so worried about my hens

[wisewoman1971]

Hi one of my lovely hens Lilly died a few days ago she first became unwell after she laid an egg with some blood loss. At first I thought it might be a prolapse but it didn’t seem to be. I kept her away from the other 2 hens for a couple of day and she seemed to pick up although she did lay a soft egg. However we didn’t get anymore eggs from her for some days, then I found her dead next to an egg she had just laid.
Now one of my other hens Bee seems to be getting unwell she’s spending all her time in the coop and although it is hot they have plenty of water and shade. I have seen a drop in eggs which I would expect in such hot weather but I am worried that she is coming down with the same thing as Lilly.
I talked to my vets on the phone and they didn’t seem to know what it could be. They just suggested it could be the hot weather?

 

[NEWTODUCKS]

Could Bee be broody? Sorry to hear of the loss of your hens.

 

[Marigold]

Hi Wisewoman, I'm so sorry to hear about your hens death. They do sometimes get bad internal problems from laying, especially if they are more than two years old and have laid a lot during their first seasons, their egglaying equipment just packs up and there's not much that can be done to help them.
The one who is spending so much time in the nestbox has probably gone broody. Has this ever happened before with any of your girls? She will just sit and sit in the belief that she can hatch out some chicks, even if she has infertile eggs to sit on, or even no eggs at all. This will do her no good, especially in these hot conditions, so you really need to break her of it. Its a hormonal condition and can be treated most easily when you know the early signs and act at once. My Buff Sussex, Marigold, is very prone to this, I've just had to treat her for the third time this year.
What you need to do is to get her out of the dark hot nestbox and pen her somewhere where she has no opportunity to snuggle down comfortably and go into the sort of trance they adopt when broody. I pen Marigold in a bare corner of the hen run, so she can see the others and not get alienated, but she can't get into the coop. Other people use something like a large wire dog cage, often called a 'sin bin,' although of course the hen isn't doing anything wrong, just has hormonal problems. Either way, the hen is given as much fresh air, cool conditions, and as much light as possible. If you catch her early, the treatment can often only need to last for two or three days, and then you can try returning her to the flock and observe whether or not she bolts back into the nestbox. If she does, its back to the sin bin for another day or two. If she doesn't, she is cured and should return to lay in a couple of weeks or so.
If she has been broody for a while, you will need to be determined to help her and be firm about the treatment. She will march around complaining loudly, but this is good as she will be getting exercise and her breast won't be in contact with cosy nesting material, which she may believe to be eggs.
Letting her continue t sit is unkind really, as she will waste away in time, lose weight and condition, to no good purpose, since no chicks will ever result.
Is she a purebred hen? These are much more likely to go broody than hybrids, who are usually bred for commercial egglaying and have had maternity bred out of their pedigree as it is a nuisance for egg farmers because it results in lost production.

 

[Courage]

Soft egg... Do you mean an egg with no shell, one with only the membrane? If so, this means that your hens need more calcium in their diet. There are a few different ways to provide calcium. One is to give then crushed oyster shells that are found where the chicken food is in the stores. Another is a way I use - after you use eggs, save the shells, let them dry for a day or two, crush them up, and feed them back to the hens. This way they are getting back the calcium they lost by laying an egg.

Hope this helps!

 

[Marigold]

Calcium uptake in laying hens is complicated, and a good brand of layers pellets will provide all they need, though sometimes a supplement may help, oystershell as Courage suggests, or I use Nettex Mineral Powder added to their feed when they are getting towards the end of a long lay and the shells are becoming a bit thin. This is a broader spectrum supplement, with seaweed and probiotics as well as just calcium. Calcium on its own isn't very accessible to the hens in their diet. I'm afraid that soft eggs are just a fact of life as hens get older and have laid many eggs and have used up nearly all the egg cells they were born with. There comes a point when softies are to be expected and there's not much you can do about it. hybrid layers often get to this at 2-3 years old, maybe purebreds go on a bit longer because they usually lay less often then hybrids in the first couple of seasons.
You didn't say how old Lily was - it may be she had just reached her time, if she was a hybrid especially.

 

[wisewoman1971]

Hi thank you all for getting back to me with your advice.
Bee ( a Silver Sussex) seems better today she has lade an egg and is now out of the coop but my other hen Hazel (a Gold Line) seems to be peaking at Bee’s bottom a lot! However both a shedding a lot of fathers in this heat so maybe it’s that?
Lilly was a leghorn, I got my hens form a local supplier in Bristol about a year last spring and at that time I was told they were all at point of lay. She did lay a lot of large eggs almost every day even through the winter. I’m so glad I found this forum as I am still very much a newbie when it comes to hens. Many thanks to everyone!

Julie xx