Trying to get one chicken to eat her calcium

[DonyaQuick]

The eggshell oatmeal seems to be having an improvement. Brownie's eggs from yesterday and today feel more substantial so I think the shells have thickened up. Got to see today's egg on the way out too; first time I've peeked in randomly and gotten that view lol. It was also a 6 egg day, one from each girl, and all eggs look good.

I was at the feed store today to finally get another bag of the all flock feed and saw they had little hang-on feeders like the sort you use for parakeets. I got one of those and used it for the crushed eggshell by itself today, hanging it on the hardware cloth. Saw Brownie eating from it! So perhaps the eggshell oatmeal has taught her that the crushed eggshell is ok to eat. I'll need to come up with a better container for it long term since the one I got doesn't keep the rain out very well, but for now I'll keep a few spoonfulls of crushed eggshell in the little hang-on cup.

That said, it sounds like your girl has a wonky reproductive system. I have one like that, too. Mine only lays, like, once every 3 months. I thought for sure there was something terminally amiss, but she's almost 4 yo now and is as feisty as ever.

I was a little worried about that with Brownie...her tailed eggs in particular seemed to have an issue other than calcium, and I doubt extra calcium would have changed that more recent nested softshell egg except to perhaps make the shells harder.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Oops, was going to post a pic in my last post and forgot. Trying to sort of keep a log of how her eggs are progressing. Brownie's egg today is in the center:

 

[DonyaQuick]

So after Brownie laid that nice normal egg, she went and made another shell-less one in the middle of the following night (the time estimated from when freezing temps were and the fact it was frozen solid) and then laid the center one in this batch today. Its...lumpy. Has a good shell on it but is definitely kind of odd.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Brownie's egg shells definitely seem better now. Bit of weirdness going on inside this one though. I thought at first I'd broken the yolk - but I didn't. It was an intact yolk with an extra mini yolk or something.

And this is that little parakeet cup I set up for eggshell. Chungus is eating it. She, Dimple (behind her in the pic), and a third, Buddy, ate it all. All three will also eat the pebbles and do not have egg issues. But they ate this instead. Thanks girls for just randomly speed-eating the only type of calcium that Brownie seems inclined towards, which also happened to be the perfect free solution. Now I've either got to step up my cooking with eggs or go buy something.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Brownie's egg shells definitely seem better now. Bit of weirdness going on inside this one though. I thought at first I'd broken the yolk - but I didn't. It was an intact yolk with an extra mini yolk or something.

Hopefully just a one off. As long as you aren't making meringues it shouldn't be an issue eating it.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Brownie's weird extra yolk bits egg got incorporated into a nice cheesy hash brown omelet thingy. Tried to step up my egg usage a bit more yesterday by making an angel food cake from scratch since the recipe I had called for 9 egg whites. It turned out as more of an..."angel"..."food"..."cake."

Brownie has been doing pretty good with her eggs. Her shells have been thicker although I suspect there was one more shell-less one randomly in the middle of the night again, since one morning everyone had yolk on their beaks and there was no trace of anything. On the normal eggs though, no more springy shells. It may be that the occasional shell-less, middle-of-the-night egg is just going to be a thing with her.

Brownie is still really hard to keep focused on food when she's by herself so I have gotten a bit lazy and am just doing an occasional eggshell oatmeal treat for all of them. The more competition she has the more eagerly she eats so it's working out. This is how fine I've been grinding the eggshell.

I also have a jar of food grade calcium carbonate powder now too in case I need more than what I've got from saved eggshells at some point but am not finding the amounts straightforward. A lot of things I read talk about how much calcium a hen needs but it's not clear to me with a lot of the pages if the weights given are in CaCO3 or just the Ca portion of the CaCO3 weight. So instead I've tried to estimate it from what I usually add in ground eggshell, which I guess is somewhere between 10-16 grams. Per bird that would be around 1.7 to 2.7 grams of CaCO3 every couple of days and that's been working out for me, so if I need to go to using the powder I will shoot for a little over 2g of it.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I also have a jar of food grade calcium carbonate powder now too in case I need more than what I've got from saved eggshells at some point but am not finding the amounts straightforward. A lot of things I read talk about how much calcium a hen needs but it's not clear to me with a lot of the pages if the weights given are in CaCO3 or just the Ca portion of the CaCO3 weight. So instead I've tried to estimate it from what I usually add in ground eggshell, which I guess is somewhere between 10-16 grams. Per bird that would be around 1.7 to 2.7 grams of CaCO3 every couple of days and that's been working out for me, so if I need to go to using the powder I will shoot for a little over 2g of it.

Yeah I honestly have no clue what the typical laying hen requires as far as calcium. So I adjust what I give the hens that need supplementing, by starting with a sprinkle 3x a week, and then reducing from there. If the shells are decently strong and consistent in quality then that means the reduced amount is sufficient. If not, then I increase it until the shell quality improves. For the most part I find 1-2x a week is enough, with some birds needing more and some less.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Last few days I have been seeing little bump thingies on eggs here and there, including Brownie's eggs (the one pictured is hers). I have read that these are deposits of excess calcium, so I will stop the eggshell oatmeal for a while and just put the eggshells I grind up out in the little blue cup for them to eat at their own pace. I've also noticed that the rock-type crushed oyster shell is disappearing at a faster rate all of a sudden, so perhaps she's finally eating it when I'm not watching.

 

[Saz Bei]

I have 6 hatchery buff orpingtons, all just under 1 year old. 5 out of the 6 lay around 3-4 eggs per week. Sometimes they'll lay eggs two days in a row but usually there are break days in between, and all those chickens' eggs look great. Then there is Brownie, who makes an egg every day with very few exceptions. The only break days she's had have come after laying weird eggs: 2 tailed eggs and more recently 2 shell-less eggs and a nested shell-less fart egg. Unfortunately I most likely caused the shell-less ones because I had to switch feeds. I had been offering chick starter alongside layer crumbles up until recently because my chickens took a long time to warm up to the larger sized oyster shell grid. Eventually they ate it, so I quit giving the layer feed because it was barely being eaten and just getting filthy. I reduced to just the chick feed for a couple weeks, and then I had to switch feeds completely to a locally-produced all-flock crumble.

I thought all my chickens were eating oyster shell grit just fine since their eggs have nice hard shells, but I presume now that Brownie was the sole eater of the layer crumbles when I quit offering it. I can't go back to offering that layer crumble on the side because I can't get bags that are newer than 9 months old and it doesn't get eaten fast enough; even small bags mold quickly when in a sealed container. I was starting to see the same bag date issue with the chick starter, so I have now switched to a locally-produced all flock crumble and want to keep that since all of my chickens LOVE it and it just smells better and fresh. But...it's an all flock mix, so Brownie needs to get her calcium from somewhere.

Since Brownie seems to not like the rock-type calcium carbonate, I have tried two other things this week:
1. Cooking and crushing up eggshell. She didn't eat it so I mixed it in with the new yummy feed. She picked out the feed and left the shell.
2. Crushing a bit of dried crickets in oyster shell grit to get them all powdery with calcium and to coat the larger pieces with cricket bits. This did work to get her to eat some but also doesn't feel like the best solution.

So, I'm looking for recommendations on what to do with this situation that can get Brownie her calcium while not overdoing it for the other five who are eating the oyster shell grit just fine (but also lay fewer eggs per week).

Crushed egg shell mixed with mince meat. Always works.

 

[dct10]

I have 6 hatchery buff orpingtons, all just under 1 year old. 5 out of the 6 lay around 3-4 eggs per week. Sometimes they'll lay eggs two days in a row but usually there are break days in between, and all those chickens' eggs look great. Then there is Brownie, who makes an egg every day with very few exceptions. The only break days she's had have come after laying weird eggs: 2 tailed eggs and more recently 2 shell-less eggs and a nested shell-less fart egg. Unfortunately I most likely caused the shell-less ones because I had to switch feeds. I had been offering chick starter alongside layer crumbles up until recently because my chickens took a long time to warm up to the larger sized oyster shell grid. Eventually they ate it, so I quit giving the layer feed because it was barely being eaten and just getting filthy. I reduced to just the chick feed for a couple weeks, and then I had to switch feeds completely to a locally-produced all-flock crumble.

I thought all my chickens were eating oyster shell grit just fine since their eggs have nice hard shells, but I presume now that Brownie was the sole eater of the layer crumbles when I quit offering it. I can't go back to offering that layer crumble on the side because I can't get bags that are newer than 9 months old and it doesn't get eaten fast enough; even small bags mold quickly when in a sealed container. I was starting to see the same bag date issue with the chick starter, so I have now switched to a locally-produced all flock crumble and want to keep that since all of my chickens LOVE it and it just smells better and fresh. But...it's an all flock mix, so Brownie needs to get her calcium from somewhere.

Since Brownie seems to not like the rock-type calcium carbonate, I have tried two other things this week:
1. Cooking and crushing up eggshell. She didn't eat it so I mixed it in with the new yummy feed. She picked out the feed and left the shell.
2. Crushing a bit of dried crickets in oyster shell grit to get them all powdery with calcium and to coat the larger pieces with cricket bits. This did work to get her to eat some but also doesn't feel like the best solution.

So, I'm looking for recommendations on what to do with this situation that can get Brownie her calcium while not overdoing it for the other five who are eating the oyster shell grit just fine (but also lay fewer eggs per week).

I'vehad a similar problem with one of my girls. None of the flock would eat the expensive layer feeds. They prefer the Blue Seal Multi-flock crumble. So I offered a steady supply of oyster shells and everyone's shells became hard and thick. Except one. She would not eat the oyster shells. I baked egg shells and pulverized them in the blender. Adding that to their feed helps. Also, a regular supply of Kale, Spinach or Collard greens will give them the calcium they need. I also grow turnips in the summer and they love the greens. All are calcium-dense greens. Most of your dark green leafy vegetables will do good for them