Chicken Butchering: Too much fat?

[st4rgut]

Hi, we just killed a buff orpington that had only been laying soft shelled eggs and noticed it had a lot of fat inside. At the same time, we noticed several eggs were forming in its ovary, and were wondering if the chicken's fat had something to do with its inability to create fully formed eggs. The year-old chicken free-ranged on our hill, and had the same diet as the rest of our chickens, yet it had trouble laying eggs. Any advice is appreciated in case we are raising our chickens wrong.

 

[Smuvers Farm]

Soft shelled eggs has to do with not enough calcium. Wish I could see the pic but it isn't pulling up for me.

 

[sourland]

Being 'too fat' can cause problems with passing eggs, but should have little impact on shell density.

 

[st4rgut]

I uploaded a smaller pic in case it was too big. We fed the chickens back crushed egg shells for calcium. This chicken had strange habits - it would lay soft shelled eggs while roosting, and then try to lay an egg during the day. The chicken actually was undersized, but when we opened it there was a lot of fat inside.

Soft shelled eggs has to do with not enough calcium. Wish I could see the pic but it isn't pulling up for me.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I butcher pullets and hens, some when laying, some when molting, and once even a broody hen. What you are showing is totally normal when one is laying. Those yolks are in various stages of developing so they can become yolks in real eggs.

Before a hen or pullet starts laying she stores up excess fat. That excess fat is what a hen lives on when she goes broody. A lot I have seen have more fat than that. For a laying hen I don't consider that a lot of fat.

When I have an issue I try to decide if it is a flock problem or an individual hen problem. If your others are laying regular shells you had an individual problem, no reason to treat the entire flock.

Some hens are just unable to utilize the calcium they eat for eggs. Their body just doesn't use it the way it is supposed to. A lot of times that is genetic.

I think you have solved the problem the way I would have.

 

[cottontail farm]

I think you sometimes get a hen that lays soft shells no matter what you do. I have had an EE like this, she also ate eggs leading me to think there was just something wrong with her ability to process calcium. No other chicken ever had the issue.
I wouldn't worry too much about it.