another jelly egg thread

[Xtineart]

help, my girls have gone into a wee phase of this, and a few of the jelly eggs have been eaten the last couple of days too. They are ex-commercial layers, but they are really healthy, happy and all their plumage is coming back and they are putting on some weight. It's been a really hot spell of weather lately here and I'm wondering if that's got something to do with it as they get a mix of layer mash and pellet to eat, have a free bowl of crushed egg shell and oyster shell (and some sand and shells from a local beach) and loads of water. I've been adding calcivet and some chicken tonic to the water too. They get a handful or two of scratch most days, some in the morning and a bit just before bed, and not too many scraps, mainly watery things cos of the heat (lettuce, tomatoes, yoghurt, grapes) to keep them hydrated and they get to free range for the full day as it's too hot to keep them in the coop, so lots of grass and bugs and dirt for them. Just this week they have all been laying soft eggs. My wee tootsie just came in to the conservatory and sat all hunched to let me know something was wrong and even turned her bum towards me so I could see as she plopped out another shell-less egg and then she just turned her head to look at me with a wee sad chicken face. I swear she knew she was telling me that this was not right and she wanted me to help somehow!

I don't know what more to do for the wee girls but they clearly aren't too happy about it, and neither am I. How can I get them back on track?

 

[iwiw60]

It almost sounds like heat stress has them "off" laying. What's the temps like where you live right now?

 

[sandesnow]

I saw similar things going on this past week too, and I would almost bet it has to do with the heat. We had 2 days break from the heat and everything seems back to normal. I was really worried. Even one of my gals was losing weight because she wasn't eating as much as normal, so I wormed her, but she is doing just fine now. Who knew heat could stress them out like this!

 

[Xtineart]

thanks, it must be that. they have a really good diet, and are generally happy, they lay out on the lawn with me purring for quite a while today. I live in Scotland so although it's hardly hot by a lot of standards it was 18c today and the garden gets no wind and almost full sun most of the day, I had even put out a load of washing on the line to create some shade! Put them all to bed early tonight, the wee one is definitely feeling a bit sorry for herself. Hopefully it's just a phase although I do like this weather myself!