Age, New Food, or very slow molting? (UPDATE with photos on Pg. 2)

[Backyard Buddies]

Thanks everyone for the ideas!

I wanted to provide an update with new info and photos in case anyone has any further ideas. We left on vacation on July 27th and the chicken sitter kept good records for me while we were gone.

The mystery has been solved with the EE. She burst into a pile of feathers and hasn't laid an egg since July 19th. She's been seen near the oyster shells recently and squatted the other day, so perhaps she'll be laying again soon.

The one RIR (Ruthie) has continued to lay 4 - 5 eggs a week.

The other RIR (Penny) is still laying soft eggs and a few oddball eggs, anywhere from 1 - 4 per week. These have been laid off the roost, in the run, and in the nest box.

On 8-14, she laid this harder shelled whopper of an egg, about 3" long, misshapen, and nearly 4 ounces.

Here it is compared with the other RIR's egg, which tends toward small/medium:

She laid whopper one, but not quite as large, on the 17th. In between all of these dates she's laid a soft shelled one here or there, then laid this strange one on the 19th:

It looks like she tried to form a shell around it, but then it just trailed behind the egg. Today she had a regular soft shelled egg off the roost.

I opened up the first of the whopper eggs, expecting there might be more than one yolk but only found a single yolk and a lot of runny, watery whites. This got me checking my Chicken Health Handbook which pointed toward Newcastle or Infectious Bronchitis. None of the other symptoms match nor does the length of this problem.

Has anyone ever seen this before? If so, was there any recovery or are we looking at something else?

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

Did you try a new bag of food? Maybe that bag has something going on with it...wrong mixture or something. I would try to return it and tell them what's happening. Maybe they will refund and give you a new bag. Those are nice clear pictures...hope someone can help you out.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Thanks for your thoughts HWMP No, I haven't yet tried a new bag of food. I was planning to go to the feed store in the next couple of weeks. Perhaps I'll go sooner than that and see what happens.

 

[McGoo]

This thread is interesting to me because my hens have slowed down considerably this summer. I've had a few soft and/or brittle eggs, but as a whole production is in half.

I should also mention that 2 of my gals are recovering from an agressive roo who scratched their feathers off their backs and wings.

What I did:
Their feed was a bit old so I got rid of it and bought a fresh bag.
I purchased some booster feed for the water, AVia charge 2000. (It's not inexpensive, but I expect it will add some much needed protein.) I filled both waterers with it so that they have to drink it.
I've also fed them some moist cat food.... not everyday, but once every 4 or 5 days. I literally use a spoon and try to only give it to the 2 that need it most. Not easy to do

Good luck with your gals.

 

[Hen Daddy]

We are also experiencing a slow down in laying. Our first egg in over a month was today by our new girl a GLW. Finally!!

 

[Kelly FG]

shelly the pic of the soft shell egg looks EXACTLY like the eggs Daphne has been laying and infectious brochitis was the only thing I found in my research too. However Daphne has no rattling or breathing problem AT ALL. And since she's been laying like this for months I'm SURE she would have passed it on to at least one other hen by now, after all they eat & drink together & sleep in a small coop.
Also my red star the super chicken that has only skipped about 10 days of laying in over 2 years has been laying large eggs with wrinkly top eggs similar to the big one you posted. One of my EEs is laying eggs with very brittle shells.
Only thing I can make of it is that the "quality" of their reproductive tract is decreasing as they get older. i've heard tales of hatchery hens burning out after 3 years

 

[keljonma]

It sounds like what our Rhode Island Red and Delaware hens were going through when our temps hit high 80°s here. You said the temps were unusually cool for this time of year, but what are the temps in the hen house?

When it is a beautiful 75° outside, it could be 90° or hotter inside our hen house.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Thanks again everyone. Keljonma, Hen Daddy and McGoo, how old were your hens that were doing this?

Keljonma - The temp of the henhouse is great. It gets only morning sun and is in the shade the rest of the day. The mornings tend to be overcast here due to the marine layer that burns off mid-to late-morning, then returns in the late afternoon.

Kelly - You may be right about their age and their reproductive tracts. They are getting older, but since I had read others who've had layers who were much older than our girls, I had hoped it wasn't coming down to that one. What is the quality of the whites in those super sized eggs you're getting?

 

[mtnhomechick]

I thought egg production naturally dropped at that age.

 

[Kelly FG]

I've had a few large eggs with yucky whites, I also had someone that layed a months worth of yucky blood spot eggs. I haven't noticed much of it lately. The truth is though I've been giving most our eggs away & DH cooks the others. I don't bake much in the summer so its reare that I'm the one that crack them open. I'm sure if DH saw anything weird, he'd say it though.