Hello
I love the information on this site and would be really grateful for some advice please.
We have four hybrids which we bought on 20th April. My favourite, the Rhode Rock, went in to the nest box to lay this morning and poohed in the box instead of laying. She moved into the other box and two of the other chickens joined her, wouldn’t leave her alone and kept attempting to sit on top of her. They also seemed intent on inspecting her rear end. This behaviour seemed to calm down after a while and they eventually left her alone. She proceeded to pooh again with what looked like runny yolk in it. After searching this site I took her indoors for a bath. She stayed in the water for about 20mins and after taking her out of the water I put a towel over her head and put some Vaseline on her rear end. When I finally stopped shaking, she produced an egg and I fainted
. I dried her with the hair dryer and hoped for an immediate recovery which didn’t materialise. For the rest of today she’s been listless, and lethargic. She has gone to the water but not the layers pellets and I’ve cleared up some pooh from the garden which I think has yolk in it (not 100% sure). I don’t know what else to do as we haven’t got a poultry vet nearby or any chicken experts. To be honest this is really putting me off chicken keeping because we lost our Coucou chicken in the first week when she prolapsed and bled so badly that my hubby had to ‘do the deed’, our Hipswell Sussex has started laying soft eggs every other night which they are all eating (I’m going to buy some limestone flour) and now my favourite chicken is ill (and we’ve only had them for 44 days!). Please tell me what I’m doing wrong?