At my witts end with soft shelled eggs, laying eggs while roosting, drop in egg production

[sanmar4chickens]

I have 1 year old hens, some have been producing thin shell eggs, some drop the egg at the roost on poop board.

Can't be food, calcium because I have other chickens laying very nice eggs and they are pretty consistent.

Coop is spacious enough, has very nice air flow, poop boards cleaned every morning. run area is big enough for 9 hens.

They just got wormed, they have 2 dust areas very nice with peat moss and some sevin. They are calm and quiet, hardly see any bickering.


Silver Laced Wyandotte , EE, Spanish Menorca, Barnevelder, Marans. - What is happening?

 

[cavemanrich]

Maybe those are asking to be sent to summer camp... Oppps chickens, only go to freezer camp..

THIS WAS JUST TO MAKE YOU CHUCKLE.

You have me stumped on this one.. My answer to you would have been calcium deficiency. But your other girls are producing as they should.

Maybe things will shake out and all will go back to normal.. Offer all your girls oyster shells free choice if you are not doing it now. It cant hurt and oyster shells also provide grit as well....

WISHING YOU BEST.

 

[sanmar4chickens]

They have both oyster and crushed egg shells. I started offering Alfalfa Hay, which someone said it has protein and calcium.

They have vitamins/electrolytes/probiotic in the water. (vitamin D and B vitamins)

That's what I told my husband, they have until the end of the 14 day egg withdrawal to shape up or ship out.

 

[pdirt]

Did they just start laying the thin shelled eggs and dropping them on the roost, or have they always done this? How many/how big are your nest boxes?

 

[azygous]

If it were me, I would try fermented feed and see if these hens are then able to absorb more nutrients which would correct the problem if its cause is improper nutrient absorption.

It's easy to do, doesn't cost any more, if fact people usually save a lot on the feed bill due to less waste, and it certainly can't hurt them.

There's a thread on the process on the Feed and Water forum by Beekissed. But it's simple to do. Just take a plastic bucket, fill halfway with your layer or flock feed, cover with warm water, add a dash of ACV to kick start the fermentation process, stir twice a day, adding more water or feed to get the consistency of cooked oatmeal, and you can begin feeding out of it after 48 hours.

 

[sanmar4chickens]

Did they just start laying the thin shelled eggs and dropping them on the roost, or have they always done this? How many/how big are your nest boxes?

9 hens and we have 6 nest boxes with curtains on them. Saturday night we were just putting them up and then i look up and the Wyandotte had just dropped an egg, it cracked on the poop board. Sunday morning there was another very thin egg shell cracked on the board, Barnevelder. They started laying last year and were laying perfectly fine in the boxes.

They started doing this on and off for the last few months.

We had 14 hens then we reduced to 9 thinking they were stressed.

 

[sanmar4chickens]

Another thing I've been thinking is predators.

We set out traps and have caught racoons, skunks and every once in a while husband has caught opossum.

Their roosts are located on the longest walls only one wall has a window (covered with wire cloth). The front door and a large window are perpendicular and air flows through the coop nicely...UGH!

This is a storage shed (Rubbermaid) so there is no way they can dig under. I would have to put cameras out there. IDK $$

 

[pdirt]

Quote:
How big is your coop? If it's too small, the stress of overcrowding may have instigated the not-laying-in-the-boxes.

Also, I don't know if this would affect them laying in the boxes or not, but you don't need 6 nest boxes for nine or even fourteen hens. 2 or 3 boxes would be plenty. We have had as many as 30 for 4 boxes and they all laid in the boxes. Right now we have 11 hens and 2 boxes. Maybe too many boxes is confusing them?!

 

[familypendragon]

Have you seen any signs that their immune systems are fighting anything? When mine were not noticeably symptomatic but were in fact fighting MG I was having between 1 and 3 eggs laid from the roost. At first they were mostly regular looking eggs, but then the shells got softer and softer till they were mostly shell-less. I am not suggesting you have MG in your flock, only that there might be something taxing their systems that you haven't noticed yet. Any mild signs of fowl pox? Mites, lice, bumblefoot? Just a guess since the normal issues don't seem to be in play here.

 

[Messipaw]

I had a similar issue. My girls cracked or ripped the softed shelled or thin shelled eggs that were layed too and ate them. I don't have an egg eating problem - thank the Lord. I offer free choice oyster shells all the time. They didn't eat them. I fed them back their own eggs with egg shells and Oyster shells mixed. Still didn't help. I went to Walmart and bought calcium and vitamin D pills. I grind them up once a week and add that to an egg. The soft shell eggs are gone. Hope this helps.