Broken Soft Shelled Egg

[Courtnan]

Sounds like you need to put the oyster shell in a heavier dish or something they can't knock over. How many hens do you have? I have 20 and I put the grit and oyster shell in gravity cat food feeders, lol. I only have to fill them up about once a year. But I bet yours peck at it once they koick it over.

Yeah, I'd keep an eye on her, watch for those soft shell eggs. The danger is her and the others learning to eat eggs from eating them. Check for eggs often during the day and get them out of there quickly if you can. What do you have in the nests? Straw? Pine flakes?

With the older and newer hens I have now 23 but have had a few more in the past couple years (a few deaths, some rehomes). They are free range. Just regular big metal dogbowls for easier cleaning which now I'm thinking I need to maybe get one of the big feeder heavy ones . They don't have a regular nesting spot as we are deworming the older hens and then a deep clean of the coop before adding them in there. So they go outside and free range during the day and we put them back in the garage at night until the coop is done, so eggs are kind of all over the place but I try to get them when I see them. So far I haven't seen them eat any until this one soft shelled one. I use horse pellets for the run (which they're barely in) and coop and then chopped flock fresh straw on top. Same with the nesting boxes.

 

[Perris]

So far I haven't seen them eat any until this one soft shelled one.

That's encouraging. It won't hurt to get more oyster shell, but from what you've said, and especially the background on the rest of the flock and their ages, it suggests that they are normally getting enough calcium from their normal diet and foraging - grass and some weeds are a good source. In which case the SS from this young layer is even more likely just a beginner's glitch that will iron itself out, hopefully sooner than later.