I believe that when you have a rabbit living with hens, that she should have her own house. Candy, our first bunny that lived outside with the chickens, had a hutch. She didn’t allow the chickens in, except once in awhile a well-behaved hen was invited to join her for a tete-a-tete.

Of course, the animals don’t necessarily agree with what I think is right. Phoebe lived in her hutch for about a week and then said, I’d rather live in the coop. Meanwhile, the hens took one look at that rabbit house and said, This is the best place to lay eggs. Ever.

And so Phoebe has her hay and rabbit pellets in her favorite corner of the coop. And the hens all go into the hutch to lay their eggs. So, when I noticed the hens hesitating to go up the ramp, I wondered what was up. I lifted the lid and saw this,

Full-sized White Leghorns, like Twiggy, never go broody, but, the bantam version does, and in her day, Betsy was a seriously setting hen. However, Betsy at the age of 7, is the Grand, Very Old, Dame of the flock. She hasn’t laid an egg for years. I can’t remember the last time she was broody. Well, she is now. This has now been going on for a couple of weeks.

Twiggy likes to lay her egg first thing in the morning.

But look who’s already there. And she’s already claimed Nancy Drew’s egg.

You don’t mess with this little hen.

You can tell a lot about a person by how they eat an ear of corn. Tidy and straight across or all over the place?

It doesn’t matter how a hen eats an ear of corn. She’ll peck at it until every bit is gone.

Tonka is a calm and methodical eater. When I take him out to graze, he barely moves.

He mows down on the grass that is, literally, right in front of his nose.

The goats, of course, are another story.

They rip up the grass with enthusiasm. (Did you know that goats only have bottom teeth in the front, none on top? But there is a hard gum line. You don’t want to get your fingers bit by a goat.)

The goats take their time to look around and chew.

There might be some talking.

And the grass is always greener somewhere else.

I have a large vegetable garden.

Ostensibly, I harvest the vegetables to put on my own table.

But, I have a few others to share with.

This is fine with me. They like the parts that I don’t.

The goats get the carrot tops.

Phoebe gets the twisty, gnarly, split carrots.

The hens get the weeds and the overgrown cucumbers and zucchini. Not to mention the chard leaves chewed by insects.

What the girls don’t eat gets turned into compost and goes back into the garden.

The birds and the bees get the sunflowers.

My harvest is divided up among many, but there’s still plenty for me.

Who do you share your garden with?

I didn’t need to isolate Opal for more than six hours to decide the next course of action. (To read why I isolated this hen, start here.) This is what I learned:

Although Opal would occasionally stand like a penguin, most of the time, she had a normal posture.

Although at first Opal was lethargic, within an hour she kicked the shavings out. She ate and drank.

It was four hours before she passed manure (which is a long time for a chicken) but the feces were normal in color, size and firmness. This was very good to see. Diarrhea and stringy black, or worse, green, manure is an indication of serious problems.

However, Opal did not lay an egg.

There was nothing more to learn. I put her back in the with flock. The next morning, Opal looked okay. If I hadn’t seen her off behavior the day before, I wouldn’t have noticed the subtle lack of vigor that she still presented. My best guess, and it is only a guess – don’t believe anyone who gives you a definitive prognosis in a case like this – is that there is some sort of glitch going on in her reproductive tract. The good news is that Opal doesn’t have an infection, and it’s not yet life-threatening. Perhaps there is a malformed egg inside of her that she needs to expel. Perhaps she internally laid an egg. (The reproductive tract is not a closed system, and eggs can and do drop into the abdominal cavity.) Perhaps she was briefly constipated. All of those issues can be alleviated by a simple therapy, an epsom salt soak.

I’m not one for most “natural” or herbal remedies (I’m quite the skeptic) but epsom salts truly are a cure-all for many minor ailments. It’s the basis of my spa treatment. Epsom salt is a combination of magnesium and sulfate. You can find it in the pharmacy, as it’s used by people as a laxative and as a foot soak. For such a simple and inexpensive product, it has many curative functions. The magnesium improves circulatory health, flushes toxins, improves muscle and nerve function, maintains the proper level of calcium in the blood (very important for hens!) and increases oxygen use. The sulfates help form brain tissues and joint proteins, creates mucin proteins that line the digestive tract, detoxifies contaminants, and improves absorption of nutrients. Obviously, it’s a general and potent cure-all. Fortunately, it is absorbed readily through the skin, which makes treatment with it easy.

I put 2 cups of epsom salts into a tub of very warm water. Some hens love a soak. Opal needed a gentle push with my hand to get down into the water. This is not a bath. You do not have to get the hen wet all over. It’s enough that the epsom salts reach the skin of her bottom.

Once in the water, the hen usually settles and relaxes. Opal did.

I let her soak until the water turned tepid, about 15 minutes.

Wet feathers allow you to take a good look at the vent area.

Many good layers, like Opal, have few feathers in that area. What looks like dirt at the base of the feathers are remnants from a winter’s lice infestation. The dark masses are egg cases. Opal doesn’t have any lice on her now that she is regularly dust bathing outside. Because hens molt only once a year, damage like this to feathers will remain long past when the original problem occurred. Don’t worry about it.

The vent area was not hot (a good sign that there’s not an internal infection), nor was it red or irritated. I palpated it. There were no hard masses, nor did it feel like a water balloon. That was also good. The vent itself was healthy-looking, which means it looked moist and soft. I was feeling encouraged that whatever had laid Opal low the day before was something that was not going to get worse, at least not for awhile.

On a cold day, after a soak, I blow dry the hen. But it was hot, and Opal was eager to rejoin the flock. She cared not a whit about how she looked, although a bit of preening was in order.

The following day Opal was fully active and social. Her comb is bright red, which is an encouraging sign. However, she still hasn’t laid an egg. Time will tell if she is all better. That’s the way it is with hens.

This morning, when I went to let the Gems out, I noticed that Opal was still on the roost. That’s unusual for her. She looked okay, but the fact that she wasn’t on the floor of the barn, active and about, had me concerned. I picked her up and listened for respiratory distress. Nothing that I heard (though my hearing isn’t the best.) I checked her crop. Full. I looked at her bottom and her vent and didn’t find or feel anything unusual. I set her down. She walked off. I finished my chores.

An hour later I checked on the flock. The other hens were busy doing their morning scratching around. Opal was under the ramp. I watched. She closed her eyes and looked sleepy.

When I went into the pen, she took on a normal stance. Sick hens will do this, which is why I like to observe them from a distance before rushing in to handle them.

She was easy to catch, which was another sign that something is amiss.

At this point all I know is that Opal is feeling off. This is exactly the type of situation for which I isolate a hen. If Opal is carrying a contagious disease, isolation might help to protect the rest of the flock – although certainly they’ve already been exposed to the pathogen. Mostly, I isolate so that I can gather more clues. I’ll be looking for:
breathing issues
swollen eyes
appetite (is she eating at all?)
is she able to drink?
is she producing manure?
if there is manure, what quantity, color and consistency?
does she become more lethargic?
what is her stance?
does her comb change color?
is she laying?
does she show signs of wanting to lay an egg but is unable to?

The Gems are now three years old and heading into the molt. They’ve been having issues with thin-shelled eggs. Opal is a breed that was originally created in the 1940s as a meat bird. She’s heavy and she’s been a consistent producer of big brown eggs. Much can go wrong inside of an older hen like her. Or, she could be developing a respiratory disease. The only way I’ll know what’s going on is to isolate Opal and observe her carefully.

If you have to isolate a chicken, try to do what I’ve done here. Do not bring her into your house. She could be shedding pathogens. She will surely stink. She won’t get any comfort by being in your kitchen. Keep her in the shade or in the barn, somewhere quiet, but with fresh air. Some hens get anxious if they can’t see their flock, others stay calmer out of view of the others. Use your judgement. Put fresh water and laying hen pellets in front of her. Don’t immediately try to feed with high-value treats. Many ill hens have intestinal issues, and making them eat only causes suffering. Let her be and check in to observe any changes. Then you’ll be able to determine what to do next.

I’ll let you know what I’m going to do for Opal. Hopefully the prognosis will be obvious by this evening, but, I’ve seen enough ill hens, and done enough necropsies to know that a clear diagnosis is rare. We’ll just have to wait and see.