Soft egg laying under roost

My 5 month old pullets have been laying for about 2 weeks. This morning, under their portion of the roosting bar, there was a soft, but fully formed, egg on the ground. This part if the coop is also directly in front of the nesting box- but the egg was not in a nesting box- so I suppose it could be possible that it came from one of my older hens. However, I doubt that as I've never had one if these older hens lay outside the box.

Not quite sure what, if anything, I need to do now that this has happened. I hope it was just a fluke, but any advice?

deacons said:

My 5 month old pullets have been laying for about 2 weeks. This morning, under their portion of the roosting bar, there was a soft, but fully formed, egg on the ground. This part if the coop is also directly in front of the nesting box- but the egg was not in a nesting box- so I suppose it could be possible that it came from one of my older hens. However, I doubt that as I've never had one if these older hens lay outside the box.

Not quite sure what, if anything, I need to do now that this has happened. I hope it was just a fluke, but any advice?

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It was a burp in the egg laying system. For whatever reason, her body skipped this step. As long as it's isolated, don't worry about it.

In case you're interested, here's an article from Scientific American on eggshell formation. http://www.skylinecollege.edu/case/biol215/docs/eggshell.pdf

Thanks for that article, I will check it out. I have had oddly formed eggs, or even just papery "empty" shells, from my older hens, so it wasn't completely surprising. But I guess what seemed odd to me is that it was just laying on the ground with the morning poop, not in the nesting box. Does that mean she didn't actually try to lay, it just passed through her system without her really expecting it?

These are the first chickens I've raised from day old chicks, so the beginning of egg laying is a new thing for me. My other hens came to me as already laying adults when a neighbor had to get rid of them.

One of my young pullets did that last week. Also not in the nesting box. I read somewhere that it is common that these "rubber eggs" are not laid in the box

Interesting, thanks. Rubber egg is a perfect description, what a strange looking thing it was!!

It was a fun lesson in egg production for my kids!

deacons said:

My 5 month old pullets have been laying for about 2 weeks. This morning, under their portion of the roosting bar, there was a soft, but fully formed, egg on the ground. This part if the coop is also directly in front of the nesting box- but the egg was not in a nesting box- so I suppose it could be possible that it came from one of my older hens. However, I doubt that as I've never had one if these older hens lay outside the box.

Not quite sure what, if anything, I need to do now that this has happened. I hope it was just a fluke, but any advice?

Click to expand...

I have 1 hen that does that occasionally. She is a little over a yr old and her shells are always fine, but I will go out and once in awhile her egg is under the roost in the poop tray. She will do it sometimes 1-3 days in a row and then just goes back to laying in the box, happens about 1-2x a mo. Wierd

I am a new chicken owner and have noticed that several times with one of my birds. She is the only one laying right now and sometimes I will notice she lays an egg with no shell. It will be laying in the poop tray. I once saw her eat one. I chalked it up to being a young chicken.

I've never had 1 lay with no shell, yet. I've only had mine since June so still learning. Occasionally when 1 does hit the poop tray and breaks, they do try and eat it. I've been lucky to catch them right away and get it and throw out.

Alright guys, so what are the odds, my day started with a weird egg and ended with one. This one was very odd looking, wrinkled and leathery looking, but hard- when you tapped it with a fingernail, it sounded like one of those hollow ceramic animal figurines. So much so, I actually wondered if it was hollow, so I cracked it open, but inside was a perfectly normal egg with a pretty pumpkin orange yolk. Too bad I wasted it!




Right now, I believe that 5 out of 8 (maybe 6 out of 8) hens are laying, but the problem is they all insist on using the same nest, so I'm not sure who this came from. One the one hand, if it was from the same one who laid the "rubber" egg last night, maybe it's just a glitch in the system evening out- but it seems too soon for that one to have already laid again if the "rubber" egg came between sundown yesterday and sunup today.

On the other hand, if this particular egg was from a different chicken, do I have a bigger problem going on here affecting multiple chickens? I just upped the amount of free choice oyster shell outside. The only other thing I can think of is that I just recently stopped feeding yogurt in the morning since it's gotten so cold out- but, taking away 4 tbs of yogurt (shared among 8 chickens) couldn't possibly be such a change in their calcium intake to mess with egg laying, could it? They are on a high quality layer pellet, but do seem to be eating a little less this week, which again I attribute to the cold.

Hmm...I guess nothing to do except see what tomorrow holds.