Egg Bound Chicken Treatment

Hi there, I am re-posting the entry on egg bound chickens as the prevoius title didn’t contain the word chicken, I hope it is of help to you and your hens.
After catching the afflicted hen, and placing her under your arm like a rugby ball, head out the back, bum facing up, try the following.
Fistly inspect the vent to see if the egg is trapped at the vent, also look to see if they is a white discharge from the vent, if so this is just the urates passing around the egg, meaning that the solids are trapped behind the egg, futher up the tube.
Now to try and aid the realease of the egg, it is suggested that you don a rubber glove, preferrably( for the hen), that you lubricate the finger with vaseline, ky or olive oil, this will make it more comfortable for the hen, and add lubrication to help the egg past easier.
Inside the vent there are two passages, the top one is where the egg comes down, word of caution this next detail wasn’t in anything I read, there may(probably is) alot of trapped wind, so you might not want to be looking to directly at the vent when you insert the oilled finger.
So apon entering through the vent you want go immediately up, when I did this I thought I could feel the top of the egg, but only just at the tip of my forefinger, I just very gently massage around the egde of the egg, it did feel soft shelled. It ‘s important not to break the egg, as this may lead to futher complications. I imagine this method alone would only work if the egg was trapped right at the opening of the vent.
The other method I incorporated with the above, was the warm bath, this sounds easier, I thought, well what you do is fill the basin with very warm ( warmer than hen body temperature), then sumerge the lower half of the hen in water, ensuring that her vent gets a good clean, and hold her in in there for 20 mins, this is a long time to hold a hen still in a basin, but it needs to be 20 mins to work, 10 mins won’t always do it, so the longer you can hold her in there for the better, this just generally helps all the muscles relax, loosens everything up. Daphne even closed her eyes for a little while during her second warm bath.
After the bath I gently dried her with an old towel, and let her back out in to the garden with the others, and the very next day her tail was up again, as we let our hens free range I didn’t find the offending egg. So if you have a hen that bum points to ground, try these methods first before taking an expensive visit to the vets.

WELCOME

Hi there, and welcome to the chicken keeper, this blog is devoted to the keeping of chickens, and the trials and tribulations that go with it, I also would like to share my D.I.Y tips and ideas. We started keeping chickens in September 2008, which is about the time I started on the recycling drive, and self sufficient lifestyle. List of Poultry we have at present, 4 Brown Shavers, two are in lay, two aren’t laying at the moment, the others are one Minorca, (in lay), one Light Sussex, and one Wyandotte Gold Lace . At present we live on a 1/3 of an acre with a creek running through the back, in Waitakere City, which is part of the greater Auckland area in the North Island of New Zealand, although i’m originally London/Irish and the other half is from Waterford, in Ireland. We arrived from the UK in April 2008, the aim is to attain 10 acres, to become truely self sufficient.
I work as a local handyman, and the other half is a teacher at the local primary school, we feel we have moved to a lovely community, we have already met half the street, mainly through the fact that we are keeping chickens, unlike other big cites of the world people still stop each other in the street for a chat, or strike up conversation with strangers, a forgotten pastime.
Comments are very welcome, I hope you enjoy the site and maybe find some of it useful.

Nest Share

Hi there keepers, I try to write my posts first thing in the morning when the brain is supposed to be alert, I make a coffee, roll a smoke, and sit down to type. So far today I have sorted out the feeder, it’s getting a bit clogged up with the damp weather, then I went to collect the eggs. Yesterday when cleaning out the coop, which was very messy, as it has been raining so much I haven’t felt inclined to stand out in the rain scooping chicken poo, well I noticed Manuella the Minorcan has stopped laying under the coop, she is the fussiest layer, if you so much as touch the egg that you are leaving behind in the nest, she will kick it outof the nest, she has done this on three occassions, and finally she has decided to move her nest, just when I had tracked down Daphne and Daisy’s new spot, and found the new nest of Betty.
I decided to clear the nest that Daphne and Daisy are using, it had been two days since I checked it , again due to the weather, and to my surprise found it contained three Minorca eggs too, so it would appear three out of the four current layers are using the same nest, which makes my life a bit easier, and dryer, as I only have to negotiate one damp shrubbery. So the girls have come to their senses and set up a time share nest in Mani’s garden next door, fortunately they have set it down just over the small bamboo fence, which I can easily reach. I wonder do they know Nancy is only inches away from them, just behind the trellis, sitting broody on an egg about six weeks old, I hope she doesn’t break it, the smell would be awful, the neigbours wouldn’t be too happy either as it is just by their outdoor seating area.