Is keeping chickens bad for your health? It can be, if one of your hens is an all-white Plymouth Rock named Snow.
Aside from being incredibly pugnacious and demanding, which are somewhat endearing qualities because they bring a smile to my face, Snow is a troubled hen. Specifically, she has problems - recurring problems - in the egg-laying department.
For one thing, Snow lays unusually large eggs. They’re significantly longer, fatter and just all-around bigger than those produced by Hope and Nellie, our Rhode Island Reds. Perhaps that’s why her lay sometimes becomes a drawn-out exercise that is stress-inducing for her humans, and no doubt for her as well.
So it was yesterday morning.
I knew something was amiss even before I opened the coop door at dawn to let “the girls” into their pen. Snow, who normally bounces at a side window and squawks angrily as soon as she sees me approaching the coop, was simply standing there quietly.
She came out with the other hens when I unlatched the door, but while Hope and Nellie immediately got down to the serious business of wolfing down their breakfast, the usually voracious Snow walked around the pen slowly without touching the feed.
For the second time in recent weeks, she appeared to be egg-bound.
Aside from being incredibly pugnacious and demanding, which are somewhat endearing qualities because they bring a smile to my face, Snow is a troubled hen. Specifically, she has problems - recurring problems - in the egg-laying department.
For one thing, Snow lays unusually large eggs. They’re significantly longer, fatter and just all-around bigger than those produced by Hope and Nellie, our Rhode Island Reds. Perhaps that’s why her lay sometimes becomes a drawn-out exercise that is stress-inducing for her humans, and no doubt for her as well.
So it was yesterday morning.
I knew something was amiss even before I opened the coop door at dawn to let “the girls” into their pen. Snow, who normally bounces at a side window and squawks angrily as soon as she sees me approaching the coop, was simply standing there quietly.
She came out with the other hens when I unlatched the door, but while Hope and Nellie immediately got down to the serious business of wolfing down their breakfast, the usually voracious Snow walked around the pen slowly without touching the feed.
For the second time in recent weeks, she appeared to be egg-bound.
Liz and I have this drill down pat by now, so we swung into action. While I held Snow with her "working end" aloft for easy access, Liz lubricated her gloved hand with gel and did a bit of gentle poking to grease the skids, as it were. Sure enough, she felt an egg. We then gave Snow an Epsom salt bath in warm water, dried her off as best we could, encouraged her to walk around the yard a bit, and finally put her back in with Nellie and Hope, who always get upset when they’re separated from Snow.
Then the wait began.
Then the wait began.
Snow finally laid a soft-shelled egg several hours later. The shell was too rubbery to withstand her weight and the egg promptly broke, but at least Snow had managed to release it. She then spent an hour or more recuperating in the coop before she finally came out into the pen and began acting like her normal self once again.
By then, it was early afternoon, so I had spent half a day worrying about our oldest, goofiest, top-of-the-pecking-order hen.
By then, it was early afternoon, so I had spent half a day worrying about our oldest, goofiest, top-of-the-pecking-order hen.
Chickens lay fewer eggs as they age, and may eventually stop altogether. Apparently Snow is still too young to slow down, but I really wouldn’t mind it one bit if she took early retirement.
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| The patient |
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