Week before last we were out of town for five days and when we returned I went to check on our hens and found one was not well. Her abdomen was swollen she was very slow moving having a hard time walking. This happened last summer to the same hen and I thought she was egg bound even though I could not feel an egg. I removed her from the others and treated her with extra calcium and soaked her in warm water and ten days later she was better. I later thought she may have had some kind of infection.
This time I knew something else was wrong. I don’t know why I didn’t find this in my research last year but these symptoms are egg peritonitis, swollen abdomen, loss of appetite, not drinking water, difficulty walking, sitting on the ground, back feathers ruffled up. It seems to be more prevalent in production breeds and is the most common bacterial infection. I separated her and started her on some antibiotics from the feed store and was hand feeding and watering her every day then found out in my research there is no cure for egg peritonitis it will reoccur and the hen will eventually die and that is what happened. Saturday I made the decision to put her down on Monday, didn’t want to do it on Sunday since it was my wife’s birthday. My wife went to palm Sunday mass and prayed for the hen to be delivered from it’s suffering or to get better and the hen died while she was at mass.