Soft-shelled egg, then good egg, then soft-shelled, and so on...what's going on?

[neo71665]

Remove the apple cider vinegar. Vinegar can halt calcium absorption.

Since chickens won't go out of their way to consume it if given the free choice I wouldn't suggest even giving it to them. Many moons of nature has them knowing what they need and don't. Don't buy into snake oil products without scientific proof of the claims.

 

[Kiki]

Yeah I think I'll cut back on the greens and treats like @ChickNanny13 said too. Maybe too much of a good thing.
And I'll continue with the extra calcium and ACV for now.

In the meantime I'll see who does fecal float test around here.

Thank you @Wyorp Rock you are always so responsive and generous with your time to help us novices.

Stop the ACV and ALL of the treats.
ACV can actually inhibit be absorption of calcium.

 

[Kiki]

I feed them fermented Grubbly Farm layer pellets.

I also sprout seeds and grow fodder and grass for them (mix of wheat, rye, barely, oats, clover, lentils, sunflower, etc).
For OS I give them a mix of Manna Pro (which I now see is mixed with coral calcium), Scratch & Peck, and their own baked eggshells.

For treats which they usually get once (sometimes twice a day)...I have 4 hens and they'll share like either 1/3 of banana, a dozen blueberries, a hardboiled egg, half a slice of bread, a little dried crickets or mealworm.


View attachment 3219991

Please try to understand that a balanced diet is best. A balanced diet would be a layer type crumble or pelleted feed.
All of these extras are going to cause serious problems if you continue them daily.

 

[My Three Chicks]

Stop the ACV and ALL of the treats.
ACV can actually inhibit be absorption of calcium.

Yes I stopped the ACV already. And only been giving her a tiny bit of treats to mix the calcium citrate in.

 

[My Three Chicks]

Please try to understand that a balanced diet is best. A balanced diet would be a layer type crumble or pelleted feed.
All of these extras are going to cause serious problems if you continue them daily.

Yes they eat layer pellets (fermented). That's their main food source.

 

[Kiki]

Yes I stopped the ACV already. And only been giving her a tiny bit of treats to mix the calcium citrate in.

Treats are what's causing her to not get enough calcium to begin with.
The layer feed has what she needs. She isn't eating enough of the layer feed because you offer all the extras that she fills up on first.

 

[KathyD Texas]

I had posted last week because my 15-month old hen started laying soft-shelled eggs and I thought she was eggbound. Well she's not eggbound so that's good. However, her laying has me puzzled so I'm back to get input. See her egg laying detail below:

Tues - normal egg at 9am & soft-shelled egg overnight
Wed - soft-shelled egg overnight
Thurs - no egg
Fri - no egg
Sat - normal egg at 9am & soft-shelled egg overnight
Sun - no egg
Mon - no egg
Tues - normal egg at 10am
Wed - normal egg at 1pm & soft-shelled egg overnight

Is this still just her working our reproductive kinks? She's been laying now for about 7 - 8 months and just started having this problem. It's so odd that she'll lay 2 eggs (a good one and a bad one within like a 12 hour span). And then some days she'll still sit in the nest box even after she's laid a bad egg the night before (but of course doesn't lay again). She's happy and healthy and acting normal otherwise!

They (4 hens) have free access to of oyster shells and crushed baked eggshells full time. (They love it and eat a lot of it!).

The past week I have also been giving her a half-tablet of Calcium citrate daily. And added apple cider vinegar to their water because I heard it helps with calcium absorption.

Please let me know your thoughts on this.

Look at my post pics! One hen is turning 3 other 1.5... not sure which is laying freak eggs

 

[christine02]

I had posted last week because my 15-month old hen started laying soft-shelled eggs and I thought she was eggbound. Well she's not eggbound so that's good. However, her laying has me puzzled so I'm back to get input. See her egg laying detail below:

Tues - normal egg at 9am & soft-shelled egg overnight
Wed - soft-shelled egg overnight
Thurs - no egg
Fri - no egg
Sat - normal egg at 9am & soft-shelled egg overnight
Sun - no egg
Mon - no egg
Tues - normal egg at 10am
Wed - normal egg at 1pm & soft-shelled egg overnight

Is this still just her working our reproductive kinks? She's been laying now for about 7 - 8 months and just started having this problem. It's so odd that she'll lay 2 eggs (a good one and a bad one within like a 12 hour span). And then some days she'll still sit in the nest box even after she's laid a bad egg the night before (but of course doesn't lay again). She's happy and healthy and acting normal otherwise!

They (4 hens) have free access to of oyster shells and crushed baked eggshells full time. (They love it and eat a lot of it!).

The past week I have also been giving her a half-tablet of Calcium citrate daily. And added apple cider vinegar to their water because I heard it helps with calcium absorption.

Please let me know your thoughts on this.

Your situation is almost identical to that of my almost 9 month old Easter Egger, Molly. I have no idea how any of my 5 laying hens could have a calcium deficiency. All of them get more than 1 tsp. full of BSF every day. The truth is that it is probably double that amount. Even her eggs that I consider safe to use are fairly thin shelled. Many of them are "jelly" eggs or jelly eggs with part of a shell. I am beginning to think this is genetic and wonder if Easter Eggers and/or other hybrids might tend to have more problems with the stage of their egg laying in which the shell forms. FYI: my chickens not only have either Dumor or Purina layer feed out all the time. But they free range over several acres most of the day every day. They can get worms and until a few days ago also had access to bugs. It is getting too cold to find bugs now.

I am in Guilford County, NC., and have only had chickens for less than 9 months. The hens started laying around 5 months. They have oyster shell in a separate container all of the time. They love scrambled eggs for their treat as well as sardines in water, which they love. I would like to find a much better and higher protein food for them for this winter.

Did you find any resolution to this? I love my chickens and want to help them as best as I can.

 

[ChickNanny13]

You should start your own "thread" so it doesn't get confusing for replies ... What is BSF?

I'm not fond of Dumor, which I tried years ago. I feed Purina has a Flock Raiser (20%) which I feed with Oyster Shells (free feed) 100%, not mixed with coral nor sea shells. Young layers do have some egg/laying issues so give them some time. Since you know it's Molly, you could give her some calcium carbonate tablet or even Tums.

You could also put them on Starter/Grower feed with the OS free feed. Mines didn't do well with the Oyster Shells (pebbles) that were mixed with coral, never tried the sea shell mix. Have always used the Crushed Oyster Shells (100%) until Covid. Then the feeds stores here only sold the "pebbles", I finally found where I could order the "original" COS.

 

[Kiki]

Your situation is almost identical to that of my almost 9 month old Easter Egger, Molly. I have no idea how any of my 5 laying hens could have a calcium deficiency. All of them get more than 1 tsp. full of BSF every day. The truth is that it is probably double that amount. Even her eggs that I consider safe to use are fairly thin shelled. Many of them are "jelly" eggs or jelly eggs with part of a shell. I am beginning to think this is genetic and wonder if Easter Eggers and/or other hybrids might tend to have more problems with the stage of their egg laying in which the shell forms. FYI: my chickens not only have either Dumor or Purina layer feed out all the time. But they free range over several acres most of the day every day. They can get worms and until a few days ago also had access to bugs. It is getting too cold to find bugs now.

I am in Guilford County, NC., and have only had chickens for less than 9 months. The hens started laying around 5 months. They have oyster shell in a separate container all of the time. They love scrambled eggs for their treat as well as sardines in water, which they love. I would like to find a much better and higher protein food for them for this winter.

Did you find any resolution to this? I love my chickens and want to help them as best as I can.

Sounds like you are feeding too much daily treats too which means they aren't getting a balanced diet not enough calcium.