Poorly Piper

One of our hens has been a little under the weather.  On Friday evening, when I let the girls out into the garden for a run around, three of them immediately started searching for goodies while Piper stood off to one side with her neck pulled in, looking very unhappy.

I got the corn bowl out, as this usually gets them all running over.  I immediately had Norma and Taystee on my lap and Big Boo scratching around by my feet, but no reaction from Piper.

I took the corn over to Piper and held it in front of her - nothing.

I put some treats out for the others and took Piper inside with me to watch The Simpsons and recuperate.  I put a bowl of corn on one side of her and a bowl of honey water on the other.  She ignored both and just sat down for a bit.  I had a feel of her neck and found that the crop was empty - she hadn't eaten all day.  I was starting to get really worried.

After about an hour of chilling out, she stood up and started straining at something.  About 20 minutes later she laid a perfectly-formed but shell-less egg.  It's an odd thing, still held together by a membrane, but squidgy, like a stress ball.

After laying, she took a nap for 10 minutes, woke up, had a look around and... OOH! CORN!  Started gobbling away at the food.  Looks like it was just the egg getting her down; she perked right up once it was out of the way.

Piper has been back to her normal self the last couple of days.  We had a very thin shelled egg yesterday which was probably her.  Not ideal, but definitely an improvement.