I just realized that I forgot to give you any information or direction as to what to do if you do think that your hen may be egg-bound. The best way to prevent this from happening in the first place is to make sure that your hen is eating a very nutritious, balance, varied diet with a staple of pellets and a seed-mix, along with a lot of fresh veggies every single day (give fruit sparingly, as it contains a lot of sugar, which is not good for them)...With hens that are mating and may start laying eggs, you also must make sure that they always have access to both a Cuttlebone and a Mineral-Block at all times...Since you've not been using a cage for your birds, I'm not sure where you can put both a Cuttlebone and a Mineral-Block so that she'll always have access to it and be influenced to eat both on a daily basis, but try to figure that out, because the leading-cause of hens becoming Egg-Bound is them not getting enough Calcium (among other minerals) in their diets...Also, it's a really good idea to start feeding her Egg-Food on a daily basis in addition to her regular diet. You can either buy a bag of already-prepared Egg-Food at Petco, Petsmart, etc., or online, or you can actually make your own Egg-Food for her daily by preparing eggs for her with the shells ground-up and mixed-in to the eggs. This is a great way to provide proper nutrition to a laying hen, and is much more efficient and more easily absorbed (vitamin and mineral wise) than simply giving them a commercial multi-vitamin. Egg-Food really should be a regular, daily part of a hen's diet...
***If you ever do think that your hen may be Egg-Bound (signs and symptoms include the hen lying on the bottom of the cage, on the floor, etc., anywhere but on a perch, the hen becoming suddenly extremely lethargic, suddenly sleeping a lot, laying/sitting with her legs spread wide-apart, like she is straddling something, and if you see her continuously and constantly straining, like she's trying to pass the egg or have a bowel-movement but can't...Also, hens who are carrying an egg tend to pass very large, messy droppings)...
The first thing you should do if you see your hen behaving this way (they also sometimes become very vocal in a whining kind of way, due to the pain, it's very upsetting and you'll definitely know that something is very wrong if this happens) is to get a towel, wrap your hen up in it very gently, and take her to your bathroom. Get a small container, like a Tupperware container that is shallow and long, along with some Olive Oil, and some Q-Tips. Bring this all to the bathroom along with your hen. Shut the door to the bathroom and start the shower on full-hot, leaving the curtain open, so that you will fill the bathroom up with dense steam. Fill the shallow container with warm water, not warm/hot enough to burn her obviously, but as warm as she can comfortably sit in. Then take a small towel, like a hand-towel or wash-cloth, and place it into the container, and place your hen in the shallow container, her feet down obviously, with her belly/abdomen/vent completely submerged in the very warm water (the towel is to keep her from slipping around, and it also tends to make them feel a bit more secure)...Then place the container with your hen sitting in it, belly and vent completely submerged, as close to or in the dense steam as you can get her. Then allow her to soak this way while in the dense steam for as long as you can keep the steam going in the shower, and also making sure that the water in the shallow container that she's sitting in stays very warm...
The steam and the warm water is meant to relax the hen's muscles...Having them in dense steam tends to fully relax their entire body, while having their entire belly/abdomen and their vent fully submerged in very warm water will directly-relax her abdominal muscles, the muscles that control her vent contraction/dilation, and hopefully the muscles that will allow the egg to pass out of her body...As I stated, do this for a good period of time, but you don't want to stress her anymore than she is, so doing this in 10-15 minute periods, then allowing her a short break is important...
When you have had the hen soaking and steaming for 10-15 minutes, remove her from the container wrap her up in a clean, dry, warm towel (if you can actually put a slightly dampened hand-towel in the microwave for 30-45 seconds to warm it up it can also help a great deal)...But, before you wrap her in the warm, dry towel, take a Q-Tip and soak the end of it in Olive Oil, and then very gently apply Olive Oil all around her vent, including the very edge of the opening...DO NOT EVER INSERT THE Q-TIP OR ANYTHING ELSE INSIDE HER VENT, just coat the very inner ring of the vent with a good layer of Olive Oil. This will assist the egg is passing if it makes it to the edge of the opening of the vent.
Repeat this process as many times as needed until you can contact your CAV or get her to a 24/7 emergency animal hospital. From what I've read and heard, most-all 24/7 animal hospitals, even if they don't have a CAV or any Avian Specialist on-call or on-staff, they are typically familiar with Egg-Binding, and they know what needs to be done in-order to get the egg to pass...They usually start by giving the hen an injection of medication to influence the passing of the egg, depending on how long the hen has been in distress...If that doesn't work quickly, or if too much time has already passed, then they will put the hen under sedation using short-term gas, and either open the uterus/shell-gland up and remove the egg whole, or some very skilled and experienced CAV's will rather do a less-invasive procedure where they go through the vent, rupture the egg purposely with a small pin-hole, suck out the contents of the egg, and then slowly remove the shell through the vent...It just depends on the vet.
****It's extremely important that you never, ever, ever try to do anything yourself in a manual way to try to get the egg to pass. I've seen a lot of people in forums and in actual YouTube videos advising people to do things like "massage the hen's abdomen", "physically palpate the egg through the hen's belly and then try to push the egg out", etc., and this is not only irresponsible of them to advise (and very foolish), but it almost always results in the egg rupturing and the hen dying. Never, ever put any pressure on the hen's belly or on/around the egg, in fact it's a good idea to not even touch the hen's belly or go anywhere near the egg..Also, never ever stick anything inside of the hen's vent, that's another foolish thing I've seen advised, where someone was actually trying to "widen" the hen's vent in order to try to "grab" the egg and pull it out somehow...That's a big no-no...
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