Single hen

[Poohcorner]

Hello. Yesterday evening I noticed my Audrey with straw sticking about 4 inches out of her beak - apparantly stuck. Stemming my panic I approached with treats - at the sight of which Audrey swallowed up the straw stem and preceeded to eat corn with no issue! She's not laying yet - instead she has demolished all of the straw from the nest box in the eglu. She's done the same today. What should I do? Is it alright for her to eat all this straw? Help!

[cluckbok]

Hi ya,

 

Not a good idea for her to be eating that, naughty girl it can impact their crop. Have you tried using aubiose or hemcore in the nest box. Or you could use shredded paper like we do, we shred our old bills, junk paper etc with a cross cut shredder.

 

and welcome to the forum!!

[Egluntyne]

I would put her onto Aubiose.

 

As Cluckbok says, eating straw may well cause impacted crop, which can be difficult to remedy.

[Margalot]

We use cross cut paper shreddings, but mine love to Stand under the nest box when a hen has gone into lay and catch the falling bits of paper as she is moving around and eat them!!

 

I am going to switch to auboise I think

[Poohcorner]

Hello. Having just replaced (again) the straw, I've just read your replies....I'm going to go now and remove! I have a horrible feeling that they both have been at it and have swollen crops! I'll try the paper in the first instance. Thank you all.

[Plum]

One of mine did that. Only worry if the crops are stay full when they get up.

[4Clucks-minusOne]

One of mine loves to eat the shredded paper so I went onto straw which she scratches out into the run. Now she has started to pull the paper from under the roosting bars.

[Lesley]

It was straw and not hay wasn't it?

 

I'm not picking on you personally but a lot of people sometimes don't realise the difference between straw and hay - straw can be used for bedding whereas hay is feed for cows/sheep/rabbits. Hens will eat hay if they have access to it and, as already said, it can cause problems with impacted crop.

 

I use straw for the ducks as they don't bother with it at all but Aubiose/Hemcore or shredded paper will be safer for hens.

[Poohcorner]

Definitely straw. Poppy has hay of all sorts, but Grace and Audrey's nestbox stuff is definitely straw. I haven't any paper yet, nor hemcore (looking for distributors) so have vastly reduced the straw inside 'til I can solve. I think Audrey's crop is 'down' in the am, but had to rush to work this am - so will study at the weekend. Thank you all so much for the advice. I hardly slept and have been really worried all day today (over protective?)

[Plum]

Grackle ate straw Lesley. It was when I saw her doing it I realised the cause of her impacted crop.

I use hemcore now, its great because any poo just dries up in blobs which can be lifted easily. Anything like that will work.

[doodles]

mine started eating their straw earlier this year so I switched to shredded paper which I'd used in the past with no problems, but they then started eating that too! I use easibed in the run but didn't want to use it in the nest because thought it was a bit co"Ooops, word censored!" for them, but recently came across some soft wood shavings (dust free) in Tesco suitable for small animals, parrots, reptiles etc and they've been fine with that. It was 75p a bag but I think it was on offer at the time