Do you keep livestock? Having any problems? Want to talk about it, whether it be sheep, goats, chickens, pigs, bees or llamas, here is your place to discuss.
Hmmmmmmm! Well their combs can go like that when they go off lay, but that usually is at the time of going into moult. My older girls still had big red combs even when they hadn't laid in years. No idea about the getting bigger though! Susie you do have some problems there in Wales what with your fruit, veg and hens. Is there something in the water do you think?
Is she heavy when you pick her up? We had one rather like this, and it turned out she was egg bound. She'd continued laying eggs, but they were still inside her, the poor thing. Presumably that's why she was abnormally heavy.
There wasn't anything we could do for her, so we culled her.
if she is egg bound you may see that she is straining to lay but not producing an egg .
a possible solution is to try and massage a little warm olive oil in the area and then try to help her pass the egg but do not break it inside her this is quite a serious thing leading to big problems i think.
i haven't expericed this but have read about it and am doing this from memory so a bit of research may be in order but all is not lost
Unfortunately, that was the problem with ours. Because we didn't see her straining or anything we didn't look for her being egg bound. And it had gone on for a couple of months - hence it was too late to help her.
I think generally if she was egg bound you'd notice her going in and out of the nest box a lot trying to lay.
If you catch her and she is egg bound then it's not a big problem if you are careful. vaseline or olive oil around her vent will help loosen her up a bit, warm her up to relax her muscles and you should be able to get the egg out.
If you do break it trying , then you have to make sure you get it all out, or it can cause infection.
Any more info about her behaviour would be helpful to work out what is going on.
I think she's just feeling her age and feeling chilly. My original girls have died at different times and one is still going strong and acts just like the younger ones and she's about 5 now.
We had one about this time last year who displayed symptoms like you describe but very much fluffing up the feathers probably feeling the cold, and looking a bit sorry for herself, yet sometimes snapping out of it and eating and carrying on as normal.
As you can guess one night she went quietly off to the great hen house in the sky - but it was a good thing as she didn't suffer any. So it might just be her time.
The pale comb means she won't be laying and the rest of her behaviour suggests to me that she is just feeling under the weather and conserving her energies.
I would give her an inspection, have a little feel about for any unusual lumps and bumps, check for lice and the usual sort of thing.
If you can't find anything obvious, have a look in her vent just to make sure she's ok there and there isn't an egg or anything else, but i think it's unlikely you'll find anything.
If you find nothing on her, then my best guess would be that she is just slowing down with age, and either something is going wrong internally, in which case she will just depart one day, or she really is just under the weather and she'll get over it.
In either case I don't think there is much more you can do really.
Well their combs can go like that when they go off lay, but that usually is at the time of going into moult. My older girls still had big red combs even when they hadn't laid in years. No idea about the getting bigger though! Susie you do have some problems there in Wales what with your fruit, veg and hens. Is there something in the water do you think? 
(thanks)
