2-3 soft shells a week from one hen!

NotSoChickenLove

Chirping
Jun 1, 2017
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77
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What do I do?
She's a brown shaver, approx 10 months old. She started laying in June and has laid 2-3 softshells a week since then. She's on a commercial layers pellet, plus she has oyster grit always available. She free ranges a few hours a day. My other hen has exactly the same diet and circumstances, same age, same breed and she doesn't lay soft shells. Both hens are bouncing and healthy, no parasites, no weird poop, they have clean water and a clean coop, lots of room to run around etc etc. Not sure what to do here......

They do get a small amount of leftover cat food in the mornings, whatever the cat has left from the night before. I've tried not giving this to them for several weeks and there's no change. It seems to be her normal......
 
It may resolve after a few more months. There's really nothing more you can do than what you are doing. Stress can cause eggs to come out early, so keep any disturbances to a minimum.

Does she lay any eggs with shells? If not there could be something wrong or under- developed with her shell gland. Hopefully she straightens out.
 
It may resolve after a few more months. There's really nothing more you can do than what you are doing. Stress can cause eggs to come out early, so keep any disturbances to a minimum.

Does she lay any eggs with shells? If not there could be something wrong or under- developed with her shell gland. Hopefully she straightens out.

Yes, she lays every day, and the rest of them are normal, shelled eggs. She's the stressy chicken of the two I have, tends to loud complaining and I have to be careful not to separate her from her sister, so perhaps it's anxiety. They've both made friends with the cat, though, they'll both eat out of my hand, and they both know that their coop and run is chicken and predator proof. Not sure how to minimise her anxiety beyond that.
 
It could possibly be an internal development defect... But sometimes soft shelled eggs are caused by other things (like stress, as oldhenlikesdogs mentioned)...

Sudden changes in lighting (season changes and/or artificial light in coop) can also cause egg laying abnormalities. (Daylight is how hens determine their laying schedule... so daylight changes can cause also cause egg changes).

I have a 3 year old Orpington that gives me about one soft-shelled egg per week (more or less)... She has done it ever since she started laying... She always has access to egg layer pellets. :( However... I did notice improvement (just improvement... she still layed some softies) when I added an additional complete mineral supplement to her diet. :)

Sorry that I can not be of more help. :( I hope that the issue corrects itself as she gets older. :)
 
I don't think it's stress....She has an abundance of eggs in her...It takes 24 hours to produce a great egg...Just wait it out....Her egg machine needs to get fine tuned....Pullets can lay strange eggs before they get into laying great eggs...
 
Sigh. I guess I just keep a close eye on her, then. She's a stroppy little madam, always takes every opportunity to come over and whinge about the servants, so that won't be hard to do.
 

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