White banded eggs

Hello! New here, so be patient. I have an interesting situation. For several days now, I have had an 11 month old Cinnamon Queen, "Bubbles", that has started laying white banded eggs, some are soft, some not. One day, she laid one on the ground outside the coop. Sometimes, I find them in the coop, like they fell as she roosted, broken, of course. She has completely skipped laying anything for 3 days and today, she laid two white banded eggs in one day, in the nest. I only have one other hen, as I lost 3 to coyotes more than 3 months ago. "Bella" is an Australorp and the dominant hen. Her eggs are completely normal. I have two chicks who are old enough that I have been slowly introducing them to the older ones over the past few days with no apparent problems. Bubbles seems very healthy and I use no artificial lighting. I am having suspicions that Bella is hogging the nest and causing Bubbles to be stressed and "holding It"...ha! I Often find her running around the coop squawking because Bella is sitting on the nest. I have two nest boxes but for some reason, they both prefer the one. What can I do, if anything, to get Bubbles to chill or get them to use the other box? Is it possible the chicks are causing the stress? I have moved this from another topic not relevant to my issue. Sorry, I'll get better. And yes, I supplement their feed with oyster shell, occasionally.

Are you feeding a layer feed? If not, oyster shell should be available all the time - it takes a LOT of calcium to make an egg shell, and deficiency can lead to laying issues.

Sometimes a hen's egg laying mechanism gets disorganized, and they will lay odd, shell-less, or miss colored eggs. She may settle back in to normal laying on her own.

Yes, it's an organic 16%, but they don't seem to care for it much. I may switch to my previous brand or a new one. Anyone have a good suggestion there? They use to be free range but since the coyote incident, they stay most of the time in the enclosed pen, about 12ft x 20ft, although I let them out occasionally, if I watch them . I have wondered, if switched from free range, to the pen might have cause the problem, but it has been over 3 months and this problem has only appeared recently. Perhaps she misses her sisters, after all this time, I know I still do!

The chicks could be causing some stress, especially to lower ranking hens.
Maybe try fake eggs in both the nest boxes.


I like to feed a 'flock raiser' 20% protein crumble to all ages and genders, as non-layers(chicks, males and all molting birds) do not need the extra calcium that is in layer feed and chicks and molters can use the extra protein. Makes life much simpler to store and distribute one type of chow that everyone can eat.

Calcium should be available at all times for the layers, I use oyster shell mixed with rinsed, dried, crushed chicken egg shells in a separate container.

Animal protein (mealworms, a little cheese - beware the salt content, meat scraps) is provided during molting and if I see any feather eating.

The higher protein crumble also offsets the 8% protein scratch grains and other kitchen/garden scraps I like to offer.