Why did my chicken lay a soft, rubbery egg? Is she sick?

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8xnoy

8xnoy

Hatching
10 Years
May 20, 2009
4
0
7
Any suggestions why my chicken laid a rubbery egg this morning? She also is very subdued. Should I isolate her and/or do anything else to check her out?
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That happend to my mom's hen one time. She found out that it has something to do with stress, like if you moved her to a new spot, or weather, or food change.
 
It's called a soft shelled egg. Lots of folks have said it happens randomly from time to time, but the prior posters are also correct. If you aren't giving your chickens calcium supplements (eg. crushed oyster shells) you probably should be. Stress will also cause hens to lay soft shelled eggs.

I had a hen survive a hawk attack, which I thought was fatal as all I found were a pile of feathers and a chunk of chicken. My first indication that she had survived the attack was a soft shelled egg on the ground outside the coop the next morning. She has never laid one before or since. I was perplexed at first, but then realized quickly what had happened. I looked up everything I could about these soft shelled eggs. They can be problematic, but usually are just a fluke.
 
Thanks so much. With that, I think I'm about to move her back with the others this morning and find some calcium. She shows no signs of anything else except maybe the listlessness. She does not cough or wheeze and looks (to me) as though she misses the rest of the flock, sitting alone in her little cage. As long as I can rule out something that will spread and kill my whole flock, I feel better!
 
Feed her shells back to her. I grind them in a blender & put them in a feeder. They seem to prefer them over the oyster shell & I don''t have to buy them. I dry them a few days, grind them, & microwave them to kill off bad bactira.
 
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OMG- That never even occurred to me! (Yeah, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed at times.) I always use the oyster shells, and feed the eggshells to my pigs or compost them. The eggshells don't interest the pigs much and don't break down well in the compost, so I know what I'll be doing with them from now on. Thanks!
 
I never realized how much my chickens loved their own egg shells until they tried a peck or two of the ones I had crushed up into the garden plot soil. Now, every time I open the door to their pen they run like crazy across the yard to the garden and fill up on em! I've just started grinding them up in their food and I can already tell a difference in shell thickness, too! They are, in my own opinion, the best source of calcium a chicken can get (above oyster shell)-- after all, they make it themselves.
 
I just started to feed my hens ground up egg shells, and I already see a difference in the strength of their eggs. I don't feed them ground up oyster shells...they remain Kosher that way.
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