We have a polish bantam hen that is acting funny. She has been on the roost all day. My kids got her off a while ago and we got her to eat a few oats and drink some water. Her tail is down. The thing that makes me think she has a broken egg in her is she poops yellow like a yolk with black. The black is tarry but the yellow looks like yolk. What can we do? Anything? This is my daughters hen and she is so upset.
Help! Broken egg in chicken???
Update... I called our vet that treats our cats and dog. He also treats chickens and owns chickens. He said that as long as she is eating that it is a good sign. He said she may pass the egg fully on her own and be alright. We are to keep an eye on her. He said if she is still the same in the morning then we need to decide if she is worth a visit to the vet or not. My husband will not want to spend a vet visit on her so we are hoping she can pass the egg on her own. She has pooped out quite a bit already. Being a bantam her eggs were not that large. Sounds grouse but my son went out and counted the yellow and black poop and said he found 11. By the way, the vet said the black was blood.....yuck!
Poor little thing. I was told that it is really a bad thing to have an egg break inside the bird. When we had a bird with this we used light oil on a q-tip and placed it around the opening as far as we could with out causing her any discomfort.
We also sit her in a warm bath for as long as we could. I hope this helps you. Please post what happens. OH, yes keep her warm.
Thanks for the info. We will keep her warm tonight. She seems to be doing a little better. She is still eating some and drinking a lot of water. She is still passing egg also. Her tail is now more upright which I hope is a good sign.
I hope she'll recovery quickly. They do sometimes advise breaking the egg internally in very serious cases of being egg bound--so they do recover from it. It sounds like she is doing well.
Well so far she is still with us. Her tail is down again this morning. We kept her in last night and the only place we could keep her was in the bathtub. Figured it would be easy to clean. This morning when I was rinsing out her poop, which is now green, a nail washed out of it. Do you think if she ate a nail it could have broken her egg? It was a smaller nail and it had a blunt end. And what about the green? Is that normal in the stage of expelling a broken egg? She is still drinking and eating some.
Nail? You mean the kind used to build things? That could have caused her some internal damage which would explain the blood.
MollyD
Yes a small nail about 1/2 of an inch long but with a blunt end. No telling where she picked that up. There was also a small rock. Im wondering also what damage it did inside.
You need to sit her down and explain that we don't eat nail, rocks or anything else that isn't her food. Kidding aside I do hope she gets better soon.
smedgekles I suspect that she will get better over time. Birds don't have really large reserves of energy or blood. If the nail had done more than minor scratches to her innards she would most likely not be eating at all right now and possibly be dead already. Eating and drinking are the best signs (in any bird) that it is on the mend. I definitely would keep her on the warm side (as though she were a young chick) in a spot free from drafts. Your tub may be too cold for her right now.
MollyD
She is not really eating anymore. She has been drinking though. We have a nice warm day so we put her out so she can sit in the sun. She seems to like it.
She has always been a more docile (sp?) bird. Maybe because she has such a large plume on her head and can't really see anywhere but down. We put her in a small pen next to the other bantams and she seems to like that. We won't leave her out overnight though because it does get cool at night.
I sure hope she pulls through for you.
MollyD
This evening we brought her in and she just stood, didn't seem to want to eat or drink. I gave her a little bit of strawberry and she seemed interested at first. I also gave her some oats. Then I suddenly got a bright idea and I decided to try something. I tapped my finger on the floor and clucked like a chicken. Yes, clucked.....and she came up to the food and started eating. She ate and ate more and ate more than I have seen her eat all day. I'm hoping she is pulling out of it.
Makshi, I did have a talk with her about eating nails. I said, NanaBee, nails are not something you should be eating.
Now her name is really Banana, named by my daughter because it is her chicken, but I always call her NanaBee for some reason.
That was a real good idea! Hope she keeps on eating for you.
MollyD
Glad she seems to be getting better. You know sometimes you have to give them a good talking to. The clucking to get her to eat is a great and funny idea. I can just see you doing it.
I sure hope she gets well. I have never heard of a chicken having an egg broken inside them.
She seems to be doing better. Her tail is now up and she has been clucking a little. She never has been a real chatty girl though. She still poops some tarry black stuff and some yellow. I guess it will just take time for her to heal up well.
Makshi I probably looked really funny sitting there clucking to a chicken. I'm sure glad it worked though :)
Hi, I have just joined Daves Garden. I was very interested in the postsed poultry page Broken egg inside chicken 20th March 2008.
As one of my girls and my favourie chicken Fluffy is unwell with the same problem.
An egg has broken inside her.
I took her to the local Vet who looks after my cats, but unfortunately she has not much experience of Chickens.
But said her abdomen was bloated and took an Xray, it showed the broken shell inside her. She was given an antibiotic and anti inflamitory injection, and I was sent home with her and had to give in her food every day with some liquid antibiotic. She has been unwell with this swelling for four days.
She is bright and alert and is eating and drinking fine, but still has a swelling in her abdomen.
I just wondered how your chicken got on, did she make a full recovery.
because I was told today Fluffy will have to have an operation to remove the broken egg and probably her uterus too.
It is all costing me loads, but as I say you can't put a price on your animals if they mean a lot to you. I live in England and we seem to have a shortage of poultry vets.
would appreciate any feedback of this problem.
thanks valetta888
So... 11 year later... LOL ...what happened to your hen with egg stuck? After you clucked like a chicken? Did she live, resume laying eggs, die, what happened?
Is there such a place as boston, Denmark, EmmaCharlotte?
Welcome to Dave's Garden.
How nice you signed up today to comment on a chicken's woes from 2008.