Hi, one of my girls has been acting a bit strange. For the last few days she has been keeping her distance from the other 5 and tends to just sit around constantly shaking her head. I’ve looked on various ‘forums’ where people tend to think that this could be parasites or ticks, problem is my girls aren’t very tactile and I can’t get near her to check without stressing her out. She seems to be doing less of the head shaking today and looks a bit perkier but still is keeping herself to herself. Any advice? Thank you.
Head shaking in my experience can be gapeworm (and they can do a funny neck stretch), Lice / Mites (in the ears especially in crested breeds), or infection in the upper respiratory tract (cold like symptoms) and they are trying to clear their nose / throat.
To be sure you really need to examine her or take her to your vet to be examined and diagnosed.
One of my six hens has started laying eggs with thin papery shells which are nearly always broken in the nest box. I’m not sure which hen it is but one of them, a speckled Marans, has just started to moult for the first time. Could the poor shells be connected to the moult? They have plenty of oyster shell which I supplement with crushed egg shell for extra calcium and I feed them organic layer’s pellets. They get Verm-X every few weeks and apple cider vinegar in their water once a month. The egg laying performance has been very good right through the winter to date, whilst my neighbours have gone weeks at a time with no eggs at all.
Yes it is most likely because they are coming to the end of the laying period. This is fairly common at the beginning or end of the laying period.
One of my six hens has started laying eggs with thin papery shells which are invariably broken in the nest box. One of them ( a speckled marans) looks as if she is starting to moult. Could this be the one who is laying these eggs? What other reasons could there be? All hens look very healthy with lots of energy, fine postures, healthy red combs and bright beady eyes. They have plenty of oyster shell grit supplemented with crushed egg shells and I feed them on organic layers pellets. On fine days they are allowed out to roam around our extensive partly wooded garden.
Funny eggs are often laid at the end of he laying period, it’s nothing to worry about. These should be normal once they come into lay again in the next egg laying period.
We have a small flock of free-ranging back-garden hens (7) and 4 of them are just coming up to a year old. They have been excellent layers and extremely friendly (they come over for a fuss and love being handled) however for the last 2 days they have not laid any eggs and seem to be a lot quieter and subdued. Ive had a look at them and 2 of them seem to have a couple of bald patches…could they be going through their first molt? I thought this didn’t happen until autumn? Other than this they don’t appear to have any other physical issues, clear bright eyes, bright red comb etc. and they seem to be eating and drinking normally.
Our other 3 hens have only been with us for a few weeks, but other than the usual “pecking order” squabbles on the first day, we have had no problems with integrating them, and they have their own coop too, so as to not encroach on the original chickens territories. There certainly doesn’t appear to be any issue that could be causing our original birds concern – and as I said, up until 2 days ago our girls were fine.
Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks.
It is difficult to say from the information you have given Gemma. It is unlikely they have gone into moult from what you say – feather loss can be caused by many things from them putting their head through a fence to get grass and catching that area, to them picking at one another because they are getting protein from eating the feathers… I would keep a close eye and try to see what’s going on.
My hens are showing partially bare bums which look rather red. Is this an infection?
No, chickens have very red skin around there – the colour isn’t something you should worry about. As for the lack of feathers, I would check for lice (it sounds like they might be over preening, perhaps due to lice).
Hi, one of my girls has been acting a bit strange. For the last few days she has been keeping her distance from the other 5 and tends to just sit around constantly shaking her head. I’ve looked on various ‘forums’ where people tend to think that this could be parasites or ticks, problem is my girls aren’t very tactile and I can’t get near her to check without stressing her out. She seems to be doing less of the head shaking today and looks a bit perkier but still is keeping herself to herself. Any advice? Thank you.
Head shaking in my experience can be gapeworm (and they can do a funny neck stretch), Lice / Mites (in the ears especially in crested breeds), or infection in the upper respiratory tract (cold like symptoms) and they are trying to clear their nose / throat.
To be sure you really need to examine her or take her to your vet to be examined and diagnosed.
One of my six hens has started laying eggs with thin papery shells which are nearly always broken in the nest box. I’m not sure which hen it is but one of them, a speckled Marans, has just started to moult for the first time. Could the poor shells be connected to the moult? They have plenty of oyster shell which I supplement with crushed egg shell for extra calcium and I feed them organic layer’s pellets. They get Verm-X every few weeks and apple cider vinegar in their water once a month. The egg laying performance has been very good right through the winter to date, whilst my neighbours have gone weeks at a time with no eggs at all.
Yes it is most likely because they are coming to the end of the laying period. This is fairly common at the beginning or end of the laying period.
One of my six hens has started laying eggs with thin papery shells which are invariably broken in the nest box. One of them ( a speckled marans) looks as if she is starting to moult. Could this be the one who is laying these eggs? What other reasons could there be? All hens look very healthy with lots of energy, fine postures, healthy red combs and bright beady eyes. They have plenty of oyster shell grit supplemented with crushed egg shells and I feed them on organic layers pellets. On fine days they are allowed out to roam around our extensive partly wooded garden.
Funny eggs are often laid at the end of he laying period, it’s nothing to worry about. These should be normal once they come into lay again in the next egg laying period.
We have a small flock of free-ranging back-garden hens (7) and 4 of them are just coming up to a year old. They have been excellent layers and extremely friendly (they come over for a fuss and love being handled) however for the last 2 days they have not laid any eggs and seem to be a lot quieter and subdued. Ive had a look at them and 2 of them seem to have a couple of bald patches…could they be going through their first molt? I thought this didn’t happen until autumn? Other than this they don’t appear to have any other physical issues, clear bright eyes, bright red comb etc. and they seem to be eating and drinking normally.
Our other 3 hens have only been with us for a few weeks, but other than the usual “pecking order” squabbles on the first day, we have had no problems with integrating them, and they have their own coop too, so as to not encroach on the original chickens territories. There certainly doesn’t appear to be any issue that could be causing our original birds concern – and as I said, up until 2 days ago our girls were fine.
Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks.
It is difficult to say from the information you have given Gemma. It is unlikely they have gone into moult from what you say – feather loss can be caused by many things from them putting their head through a fence to get grass and catching that area, to them picking at one another because they are getting protein from eating the feathers… I would keep a close eye and try to see what’s going on.
My hens are showing partially bare bums which look rather red. Is this an infection?
No, chickens have very red skin around there – the colour isn’t something you should worry about. As for the lack of feathers, I would check for lice (it sounds like they might be over preening, perhaps due to lice).