My Gold Sex Link hen has started laying the most strange eggs. They’ve always been huge but over the last few months they’ve become really lumpy and strange looking, like the surface of the moon! The shells aren’t necessarily thin but they are fragile and almost see through. I have a mixed age flock so everybody is eating starter/grower crumbles. I also put apple cider vinegar in their water on occasion. They eat a lot of table scraps but I try not to give them too much garbage food like bread. I also have oyster shells available for them to eat whenever they want. Any thoughts? She seems relatively healthy and is about a year and a half old.
They may need more calcium? Have you tried crushing eggshells really small and feeding that back to them instead of the oyster shells? Parsley is really good for laying as well.
We call them dinosaur eggs , my customers love them... ours came from heat since we don’t give treats ....
18 month old sex link could be having trouble they have short laying lives ...
Acv won’t help with this but it could keep their gut in balance ... I’d make crushed egg shells their treat and only high protein things for an occasional treat( fish, cottage cheese,eggs etc)
Stress is the most common reason for these ridges on eggs. The hen got scared, or is too hot, or too crowded or attacked by a predator or something. After the first lightening storm my hens ever experienced I had a couple of eggs like this. It's not normally a continual occurrence and is usually from stress of some sort. I've never heard that feed had anything to do with it. ?????
Several things can cause this, as mentioned stress, like being picked on, chased, heat etc. Also possible she has a tight egg duct, where one egg is in place and the egg behind it bumps into it as it comes down the egg duct. Keep a close eye on her as it is possible she may become egg bound. Saw this as a kid, grew up on the farm with 100 plus chickens so it was next to impossible to determine which hen it was till it got sick, or died.