An egg is stuck. In a budgie or cockatiel that goes bad within hours; in a chicken hen, usually inside a day or two. The severity call has to come first because the physiology doesn’t wait — a jammed egg cuts off the vent, disrupts breathing, and if it breaks inside her, yolk contamination triggers peritonitis that spreads to the bloodstream.
Egg binding is the emergency version. Over-laying — a hen or a whole flock churning out more eggs than her body can supply calcium for — is the slower one, and the two share a root cause more often than not: low dietary calcium, first-time or elderly layers, and small pet birds who have decided to lay with no nest and no diet to support it. The basic reproductive anatomy sits underneath both. For how laying trouble fits alongside the rest of what can go wrong, our bird health guide is the wider map.
Straining hen, tail-down small bird, or a hen puffed and squatting for more than a few hours — go in person, not to a warm bath and not to a home protocol you found on Facebook. Talk to an avian vet.
Egg binding is a stuck egg the hen can't push out — an emergency that can turn fatal within a day. The early signs, what a warm-bath and calcium approach can do at home, and when the same-day vet visit is non-negotiable.
How to tell if a hen is egg-bound, what to try at home first, and the signs that mean she needs a vet the same day.
Scaly leg mites burrow under the scales on a hen's legs and lift them into rough, chalky ridges — the earliest signs to catch, and the treatments that kill the mite without damaging the leg underneath.
Mites hide in the feather bases and in coop cracks, not just on the bird — a look at which mite you're dealing with, and the two-front treatment that clears them for good.
The dosing walkthrough for the antiparasitic most bird keepers ask about — what it treats, and where a vet must confirm.
Bird flu — avian influenza — is a family of viruses that live naturally in wild birds.
