{"id":34064,"date":"2022-01-08T14:44:46","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T14:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=34064"},"modified":"2022-01-08T14:51:00","modified_gmt":"2022-01-08T14:51:00","slug":"shadow-has-a-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=34064","title":{"rendered":"Shadow has a problem"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The day before yesterday Shadow was in the nest box for most of the day. She had been in there all morning so at lunch time I lifted her out and gave her some sunflower hearts. Shadow returned to the nest box until the end of the day but there was no egg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I assumed that Shadow had got her timing wrong and didn&#8217;t think any more of it but yesterday morning when I gave out some sunflower hearts Shadow didn&#8217;t come running with the rest of the girls. She was sitting on a log looking miserable and hunched. I realised she was having an egg laying problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shadow&#8217;s egg shells have been a bit thin recently and this is typical of a soft shelled egg.  At the end of the day she put herself to bed and I hoped that there would be a soft shelled egg in the shed in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today there was no sign of an egg. Shadow wasn&#8217;t able to compete with the girls for the treats which is always the case when they are feeling out of sorts. I checked Shadow and she had a mucky bottom which is also always the case with an egg problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the past when there has been a bit of an egg shell showing I have been able to pull it out but there was no egg shell showing. I am heart broken at the thought of losing her. Shadow is a favourite. She is so pretty and so friendly. She has a lovely nature and is the easiest girl to pick up. I don&#8217;t know why this is happening to her when she has never had egg laying problems before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I know that if I do nothing and she has an egg stuck we will lose her so I felt that I had to try to help her. I decided on a three pronged strategy. First I wanted to get her to eat something to help keep her strength up. Secondly I decided that as I still have some tylan, that is in date, I would put that in the water for five days. I have read that occasionally an egg can be reabsorbed and an antibiotic could stop an infection. Thirdly I decided to give her a warm bath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have never found that the bath treatment has worked for me but other people have had success with this and I felt that I had to give it a try plus it would clean up her mucky bottom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First I separated Shadow on top of the metal table and gave her chopped tomato and sunflower hearts which are her favourite things. She wouldn&#8217;t take them from the dish but had some when I dropped them in front of her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/shadow-having-some-tomato-and-sunflower-hearts.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-34084\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/shadow-having-some-tomato-and-sunflower-hearts.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/shadow-having-some-tomato-and-sunflower-hearts-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/shadow-having-some-tomato-and-sunflower-hearts-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption>Shadow having some tomato and sunflower hearts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p> Next I got everything ready to bath her. I also used a syringe to put some of the tylan water into her beak as she isn&#8217;t going to the water at the moment and I felt this would give her a start on the tylan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I bathed her in a bowl of warm water making sure her vent was in the water. The muck had set hard on her feathers so I gently got that off. I couldn&#8217;t see any sign of egg or shell in her vent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I wrapped Shadow in a towel on my lap and dried her as much as possible before using a hair dryer on the lowest setting to finish drying her. I put her on a towel in the bathroom to wait a bit until I was sure she was fully dry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/shadow-after-her-bath.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-34086\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/shadow-after-her-bath.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/shadow-after-her-bath-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/shadow-after-her-bath-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption>Shadow after her bath<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/after-her-bath-with-some-treats.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-34087\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/after-her-bath-with-some-treats.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/after-her-bath-with-some-treats-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/after-her-bath-with-some-treats-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption>After her bath with her dish of treats<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Shadow didn&#8217;t move from this spot and I was worried that she was traumatised so I decided it would be best to return her to the run. I put her in the nest box but she immediately came back out so I left her to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Only time will tell if she comes through this. I am very down hearted about it at the moment but there really isn&#8217;t anything else I can do for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I will be keeping a close eye on Shadow and checking her vent regularly. I am willing her to come through this. Please, please, please, get past this Shadow. I can&#8217;t bare the thought of losing her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The day before yesterday Shadow was in the nest box for most of the day. She had been in there all morning so at lunch time I lifted her out and gave her some sunflower hearts. Shadow returned to the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=34064\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34064"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34064"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34100,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34064\/revisions\/34100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}