Dandelion’s eggs

I am writing this post in hindsight because we thought there was a problem with Dandelion and then it passed but I hadn’t got round to writing about it.

Last Tuesday I could see that Dandelion didn’t look happy. She had the look that she used to have when she was about to lay a soft shelled egg.

Dandelion doesn’t look happy

Her eyes were closing although her head is so deep in her ruffles that you can’t see her eyes.

On Wednesday the pine shavings were quite wet under her roost spot and I wasn’t sure if she had laid an egg without a shell. She had a slightly mucky bottom and didn’t look at all happy. I picked her up and cleaned her bottom and checked her over but I couldn’t see anything wrong with her.

I called the vet and made an appointment for that afternoon after I had delivered my lunches.

By the time I got back at lunch time Dandelion was in the nest box. I decided to cancel the vet as I felt that I needed to wait and see if she managed to get her egg laid and maybe would then feel better.

A bit later I checked on her again and she had just finished laying her egg. For Dandelion it was a whopper! It was twice the length that her eggs usually are. No wonder she hadn’t looked happy. She looked perfectly back to normal once her egg was laid.

We hadn’t got any of Dandelion’s tiny eggs left to photograph so I am using some past photos to show her eggs usual tiny size.

Speckles egg is in the middle then left of that is Cinnamon’s egg then far left is Dandelion’s tiny egg

Flame’s egg is on the left then Ebony’s egg and right of that is Cinnamon’s egg and furthest right is Dandelion’s tiny egg

Below is the recent egg that Dandelion struggled to lay.

Cinnamon’s egg is on the left and Dandelion’s is on the right

If it hadn’t been for the fact that I saw Dandelion lay that egg and then Cinnamon laid hers shortly after I would never have believed that that was Dandelion’s egg. Any other time I would have thought that was Cinnamon’s egg but they both laid that day and that was definitely Dandelion’s egg.

Two days later they both laid again.

The next eggs, two days later, Cinnamon’s egg on the left and Dandelion’s on the right

Dandelion’s egg is now smaller than the last one but still bigger than her previous tiny eggs. I am glad that her egg is smaller and hope that the large egg was just a blip as I don’t want her to suffer from laying larger eggs especially as she has had a slight prolapse in the past.

I think that as the egg was longer rather than bigger in width she managed to lay it without prolapsing. She seems fine now so I hope that her eggs return to normal size as I don’t want her to have problems laying in future. I don’t know why she laid such a large egg.

Dandelion is our chicken with nine lives. She has come back so many times from us nearly losing her. She used to lay soft shelled eggs in her first year and looked so poorly but she kept pulling through. She suffered from the myco all last winter but came through. She had a slight prolapse but was the only girl to bounce back from that. She seems to keep going despite set backs.

Every time I think we might lose her she comes back to fight another day. I am so relieved that we still have her and another crisis seems to have passed.

Long live Dandelion. The chicken with nine lives!