[StephB]

Afternoon all,

On Monday I started my Spring worming of the hens.  90% of these hens are new POL Hybrids from quite an intensive chicken farmer.

I had such a disaster with Pure breeds last year and lost alot of money, I decided to re-stock with low cost hybrid layers.

This morning, day 2 of the worming process, I went to collect some of the eggs and noticed spots of blood in the two nest boxes.  Not loads but enough to think - Ooooh blood.

I have no clue if the hens had been wormed before I collected them, but I dont imagine they had been looking at the state of his set up.

If the hens had a large worm count would that account to the blood??.

Just curious as I have 25 hens and recently they have been sloing down with the laying.  They peaked a few weeks ago at 17 eggs per day, but now only getting around 13.  (All got red combs, no lice, checked for red mite).

Any advice would be appreciated, I do hope its not another disease 

xxStephxx

[in the hills]

I dont have any actual experience of it but I believe coccidiosis can cause blood in droppings. I would have thought that your hens would look at least a little unwell though if it was this, ie hunched up with ruffled feathers, maybe thin. It would cause a drop in egg production. What happened to your pure breeds,Steph? Think that the coccidiae can survive for a long time on the coop floor. Think the vet can analyse droppings for this and give treatment to control.

If it is a one off incident and in the nest box could one of your hens have ruptured a little blood vessel when laying? Have sometimes found an egg with a smear of blood on it, especially as hens come into lay.

Not sure about the wormer causing it. Do use this wormer but never noticed any blood and mine definitely had a heavy burden at one point last year despite being wormed only 6 months before. I blame all the pheasants!!

Have you got cockerels? Sometimes mine have a little spat and there is blood in the hen house next day.

[StephB]

I dont have any actual experience of it but I believe coccidiosis can cause blood in droppings. I would have thought that your hens would look at least a little unwell though if it was this, ie hunched up with ruffled feathers, maybe thin. It would cause a drop in egg production. What happened to your pure breeds,Steph? Think that the coccidiae can survive for a long time on the coop floor. Think the vet can analyse droppings for this and give treatment to control.

If it is a one off incident and in the nest box could one of your hens have ruptured a little blood vessel when laying? Have sometimes found an egg with a smear of blood on it, especially as hens come into lay.

Not sure about the wormer causing it. Do use this wormer but never noticed any blood and mine definitely had a heavy burden at one point last year despite being wormed only 6 months before. I blame all the pheasants!!

Have you got cockerels? Sometimes mine have a little spat and there is blood in the hen house next day.

Hi,

There def isnt any blood in the poo, it was just a abit pure blood soaked into the shavings where the egg was laid.

The preivous flock of light sussex died of Mareks.  Had a post mortem by local vets and disinfected the houses with Virkon (known to kill the herpes virus) and have now bought vaccinated birds after a two month break.

Hope to heavens it isn't cocci after everything I have been through.  I did just read that sometimes a pullet will burst a blood vessel when she lays her first couple of eggs and as they are all very young and only just starting, maybe that is the explanation.

I certainly hope so.

[chrismahon]

The Flubenvet is coincidental Steph. New birds laying for the first time have to stretch their vent further than before. With hybrids producing disproportionately sized eggs sometimes there will inevitably be some tearing. Nothing to be concerned about unless one doesn't heal or gets infected. Even Pedigrees have these issues and we've never had any long term problems. In fact we've had two blood covered eggs from hens that have just started laying after the Winter.

All our hens have slowed down from their initial surge. 20 eggs a day down to 15 for no reason. Might be the strange weather -cold one day, hot the next. I am not worried about it. Things will steady out soon enough.