The Poultry Keeper

Nicschickens

Hi all, this is my first post here, so be gentle with me!!

I got my 4 POL hybrid girls last Friday, all was fine up until this morning when Marilyn, my Amber Star, was looking very under the weather.

She was standing in a corner, looking like she was straining, making strange loud cries every so often, and emitting clear liquid and occasional yellow/salmon coloured goo from her vent. I took her to the vets in a panicking newbie kind of way, where she was given an antibiotic injection and a thorough examination, and then brought her home. The vets best guess was egg peritonitis Question

Within a couple of hours she was back to her usual self again, pooing normally, and doing chickeny things. surely if she had something as serious as peritonitis she wouldn't have made such a miraculous recovery? I wasn't entirely convinced by the vet either as she kept wandering out of room for long periods of time, presumably to read chicken books...

I've read that chickens can lay some weird soft eggs before their laying gear is fully developed, so was wondering if that was causing the distress this morning? I couldn't find any evidence of a weird egg having been passed though, unless her friends ate it before I saw :-&

I guess I'll keep Marilyn on the antibiotic course to be on the safe side and do what the vet told me to do, but any other advice would be brilliant, as the whole episode was really odd!

CP · Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 5:20 pm Post subject:

Does sound as though she may have had a problem that's now passed. There's often weird eggs laid when they're starting out. They soon get used to it so unless she does it all the time, which could indicate a more serious problem, just chalk it up to experience. Wink

Glad she's feeling better now. Very Happy

Autumn · Joined: 27 Jun 2008 Posts: 494 Location: Suffolk

Our vet did that too - but she did admit she knew very little about hens and looked it up on the internet!! Very Happy

With the physical examination though, they do know what they're doing - but she did have to look up a hens normal temperature!! Very Happy

See how we're educating vets around the country. Laughing

There is usually an egg withdawl after antibiotics.
Welcome to th wonderful world of hens!

Nicschickens · Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 7:31 pm Post subject:

Thanks both! She did warn me not to make any baytril laced omelettes from Marilyn's eggs for the next week Laughing

Autumn · Joined: 27 Jun 2008 Posts: 494 Location: Suffolk