Recently, Bronwyn had a bad afternoon. We weren’t sure what was wrong with her but she stood in a strange position (high-bum is the best way to explain it) and she dozed rather than scratched and wandered with the other chickens. Dozing is something our chickens never do – at least not when I’m around to see them. They do close their eyes (micro naps?) when taking a dust bath or sun bathing, but never really shut their eyes for long. So Bronwyn’s behaviour worried us.
At dusk, the other hens wandered down to their coop but Bronwyn stayed under her napping-shrub. Frank carried her down to the run and she walked right back out and stood under her shrub. He got me and then went to carry her again. He picked her up, quickly set her down and freaked out a little. Bronwyn wasn’t overly fussed and waddled down to the coop to roost for the night.
The freak-out was over the fact that Bronwyn had laid a shell-less egg. There was something that we think was the unformed shell at the end of the mess (it didn’t feel like an intestine which was one of our scarier theories). It was pretty gross and I’m guessing Bronwyn agreed since she didn’t want to put it in her nest box.
She had already laid an egg that day so what in the world was this one all about?
The good news is that the next day she was fine – back to normal as if her aborted egg was no big deal. Whew!
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