# Sick hen



## K10sal (May 16, 2020)

My Ameracauna is acting like she’s sick. She’s not moving around much, she keeps hiding, and she won’t really eat or drink. About 40 min ago, she laid an egg with no shell...and she just laid another one with no shell. And she has green diarrhea. What could this be? EDS?


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

She's struggling to lay eggs. Is she getting oyster shell/calcium?

Do you know the last time she laid a normal egg?

You can try helping her with calciboost for goats, a flavored liquid and a vitamin D3 a day.

Problem is, if she's struggling to lay this might not be a temporary thing.

And the green is a signal she's not been eating. Try making her feed into a gruel or cook up some oatmeal and mix in some of her feed in that. It might get her to eat some.


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## K10sal (May 16, 2020)

Thank you, Robin. She’s been laying fairly normally for about 2 weeks now - she’s young and just started laying. I figured this might be due to figuring things out, but it seems to be more than that just based on her behavior. Any my dog, who thinks the chickens are her babies, just stomped her head???? She’s NEVER done anything to hurt them - she’s the dog that tried to nurse them and lactated so it makes me think she knows something I don’t know. 

my hen’s tail was down and she was hiding. After laying the two shell-less eggs back to back, her tail is up, and she’s pecking with her flock again. I’ll take your advice and see how things go.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

I would supplement her with the calciboost and the D3. I had one like that. Whenever she laid soft shelled eggs I'd give her a 1/2 cc of the calciboost for about a week. She'd then develop better shells. At some point I didn't have to give it to her anymore. It might have been that her body got with the program.


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## K10sal (May 16, 2020)

It’s so weird! She’s acting completely normal now that she laid those two shell-less eggs. I keep reading that it’s impossible for that to happen (laying two eggs back to back), but she laid them both right in front of me, so I know for a fact that it’s possible. I wonder if it was similar to being egg-bound that had her sick. She’s with her flock again, tail is up, she’s not hiding, and she’s eating and drinking.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

When they are having laying issues it's completely possible to have on not fully formed egg stuck and have another right behind it. That's why she could use the boost in calcium and vitamin D. They both help in shell production and muscle strength to move the egg through the reproductive system.

She felt punky because of the eggs that she couldn't get out of her body. I'm not surprised to hear she's feeling tons better. They usually do after they pass the eggs.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

The Calciboost will help as Robin said, sometimes it's tricky getting enough calcium in a recalcitrant hen.


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