Chicken Prolapse

My Mister has had a sore back and has been stuck in bed for over a week, unable to move.
Thankfully he is feeling a bit better these last couple of days, and he thinks he'll manage a shower and shave today - so I asked for some photos of him with his beard and the hens, before he shaves it off.

My Mister with Matilda

Mister with Rosie, our blue bantam Orpington

Usually he is clean shaven so this has been somewhat of a novelty.

And now, about the prolapse...

When he put our black Australorp Matilda back down onto the ground, I noticed a part of her bottom sticking out!  It looked quite scary and she did seem distressed about it, she was standing very still, made herself look quite big and seemed to be waiting.  It was a bit like a pink bubble poking out of her.

 

After I took a few photos of it (sorry they're blurry, I was a bit concerned) the bubble went back inside and she was back to normal.

I was glad to get a couple of photos though, because I have seen this happen to Matilda before.

Now at least I could research and find out what the trouble is.  

It is called a prolapse.

As Matilda's prolapse went back inside, I won't need to administer anything, but I will monitor her each day.

Looking at the list of causes on The Chicken Chick's blog post, I would say that the most likely for Matilda is that she started laying whilst too young or still to small.  Perhaps it would have been better to put her on growers pellets for the first month of her living with us, instead I put all four hens onto layers pellets.

Hopefully if she gets a bit bigger soon, then this problem will sort itself out as she gets a bit older.