Here on Sunny View Farm we have 5 Ameracauna hens who are about a year old. When one of these Ameracauna hens had some troubles laying an egg I had to attempt to help her out. Since she was egg bound I knew she was going to die a slow painful death if I didn’t help her. I would never want that for any living creature and these hens are my responsibility so I stepped up to the plate.
It was a cold January night and I was closing up the coop when I noticed one Ameracuana hen was egg bound (egg was stuck inside of her). I have never experienced this before so a little internet search quickly helped me find out what the issue was and helped me find the best way to treat it. I know most chicken farmers would have let nature take its course but I was determined to help her out.
Once the kids were in bed I made the trip out to the coop. There I was, sitting with a 5 gallon bucket of warm water in the 15° chicken coop working on her trying to get the egg out without breaking it. The other 10 hens were sitting quietly looking at me helping their sister. You would think that it would be chaotic with hens flapping around freaking out but it was like they knew what was going on and my little chicken patient was the most calm, collective, and understanding chicken you could only dream of.
After about an hour I got the egg out. I got the egg out without breaking it! If the egg would have broken the chance of infection and death becomes very high so the fact that I was able to get it out in one piece greatly improved her chances of survival. I did my best to dry her off and then treated and disinfected her prolapse. I gave her a heat lamp for the night and thought about her all night and kept hoping and wishing she would make it through the night.
The next morning I opened up the coop and she came walking out of the coop like nothing happened. She made it through the night! The next few days I ended up keeping her in the coop quarantined away since the other hens were pecking at her. She was healing very slowly and I figured she wouldn’t lay anymore but today she is just as healthy and productive as the other 4 Ameracauna hens.
It’s strange to think of a chicken being able to understand what was going on but this hen still today will walk up to me and follow me around. She will hop up to my height in the coop and just stare at me while all the other chickens are doing their chicken activities. The highest ranking hen in the coop (top of the pecking order) follows me around too. I have never had chickens act the way this flock of 11 chickens do. We introduced a rooster, five more chicks, and then another 8 more chicks (offspring of rooster and the original 11) and they all act like typical chickens. Are the original 11 a little more appreciative because I saved their sisters life or are they different just because they were the first chickens? I like to think they appreciate the effort I spent that night with them in the chicken coop.
