Chicken with Egg Laying Problems

[BuddingGardener]

Hi everyone! I have a pullet that's had some issues with egg laying recently.

Junie is an Easter Egger pullet, she was hatched on April 6th, 2022, from Cackle Hatchery. She is definitely our smallest bird but seems to look and feel within the norm for an Easter Egger -- we have two and she's only a little smaller than her 'sister.' She has consistently laid the smallest eggs, though, usually around the small-to-medium range and no larger. She started laying again after a 1.5 winter month pause a few weeks ago.

This week things got weird. We noticed a shelless egg in the roosting area (we house in an Omlet Eglu Cube with a large walk-in run) early in the week, but no odd behaviors from any of the chickens, so we cleaned it up and waited to see. All three of our other chickens have been laying consistently, but Junie had not laid for the remainder of the week.

This morning I brought out their bowl of treats (I do a chopped raw veggie mix topped with some scratch, fruit, and dried black soldier fly larva) and she did eat from the treats. After that she was mostly looking puffed and big and drinking constantly. I called around a few chicken vets but they're either all booked or taking extra precautions because of avian flu, so I'm waiting for a call back.

We were just about to round her up and place her in a warm epsom salt soak when she managed to expel a whole beautiful egg right in the run. She followed it up with a bunch of loose egg whites, and then another egg, this one shelless and without any whites. It does not look like a lash egg as the egg material is not cooked or meaty or infected-looking. She has perked up a little but I'm watching her closely.

We are currently feeding a mix of Nutrena Feather Fixer and Purina Layena Crumbles (we have two feeders and one has one food, the other has the other; we have a bag of Purina to refill with next). We offer oyster shells and grit on the side.

The run has a mixture of hemp and sand. The coop and nesting areas use straw/pine shavings. We clean out the coop tray every other day. When she does poop, it looks normal to me. It's just the egg whites/odd yolk and the messed up eggs that concern me.

What else can be done for her? Is it worthwhile to get her vet checked? I attached pictures of one of her shelless eggs and my Easter Egger for reference.

Thanks!

 

[azygous]

She needs help getting her ovulation reset to one yolk per cycle. Two eggs per cycle is not that rare, but when it happens it not only makes the hen feel just awful, but it's a risk to her life and reproductive health.

The way you treat it is with this.

Give her one whole table right now and one per day until she's procucing a single egg per cycle and the shells are of good quality. It could take three days or a week or even two.

And as much as the chickens enjoy the veggie treat fest, try to restrict it to once a week.

 

[BuddingGardener]

She needs help getting her ovulation reset to one yolk per cycle. Two eggs per cycle is not that rare, but when it happens it not only makes the hen feel just awful, but it's a risk to her life and reproductive health.

The way you treat it is with this.View attachment 3417165Give her one whole table right now and one per day until she's procucing a single egg per cycle and the shells are of good quality. It could take three days or a week or even two.

And as much as the chickens enjoy the veggie treat fest, try to restrict it to once a week.

This is extremely helpful. How do you suggest administering the tablet? She's my most skittish chicken and I'm having trouble feeding her out of hand. I have reptile calcium powder, too, both with D3 and without. I'll pick up the tablets so I know how much I'm giving.

Could I replace the veggie treat fest with BSFL, a small amount, since there's calcium in them? Then veggies once per week. Thank you very much! She is acting better now but I want to make sure she gets a hard reset and gets back to herself.

 

[nuthatched]

This is extremely helpful. How do you suggest administering the tablet? She's my most skittish chicken and I'm having trouble feeding her out of hand. I have reptile calcium powder, too, both with D3 and without. I'll pick up the tablets so I know how much I'm giving.

Could I replace the veggie treat fest with BSFL, a small amount, since there's calcium in them? Then veggies once per week. Thank you very much! She is acting better now but I want to make sure she gets a hard reset and gets back to herself.

Not a lot of calcium and not enough to justify the fat in bsl.
When shes on the roost, pull down on a wadle to open her beak and pop the tablet in, she'll swallow it.

 

[azygous]

BOSS can be given more frequently than the other treats.

You give a pill to a chicken by prying open the beak and shoving it inside. Chickens have no teeth because they do not need to chew in order to swallow as we do.

 

[BuddingGardener]

Got these. One tab per day is safe? Just verifying!

 

[azygous]

Yes! You got it!

 

[BuddingGardener]

She took it successfully and just seemed confused about it. She’s acting SO much better so I’m hopeful the supplement will do the trick. Thanks for your help!!!

 

[BuddingGardener]

She's been on the supplement since Monday with not much improvement. She's laying yolk-less masses surrounded by membrane, today she had a very labored time laying an egg surrounded by whites and a no-shell membrane. I'm concerned she's an internal layer and has EYP; she does recovery after getting these things out of her, but everything I'm reading about the condition seems to fit her odd laying behavior and, unfortunately, I have to either pay a fortune at the vet to save her life with hormone injections, wait and see if she gets more ill, or potentially put her down in the near future. She is only one of four hens, my four first hens, and I'm feeling pretty sad if my anxieties and suspicions are right.

I can try to squeeze her into a vet appointment but I don't know how successful I'll be.

 

[BuddingGardener]

Good news!

My Junie laid her first PERFECTLY NORMAL egg since we started calcium supplements! She's also acting just like her old self. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic that it was a deficiency after all, and thank you for the calcium recommendation, @azygous ! We gave her another calcium tab today after she laid (midday) and we'll see if she'll lay at least every other day normally.

Here's what we suspect happened to cause the deficiency:

Over the winter Junie experienced a soft molt and stopped laying for about 6 to 8 weeks. At that time we switched to Nutrena feather fixer feed to bump up the protein content, thinking this would help her out. Well... It might have, if the chickens would have eaten their Nutrena feed at the same rate as Purina Layena crumbles. All of my hens slowed their feed intake significantly while on feather fixer pellets. We polished off the last of the Nutrena and filled their feeders with Purina Layena again, and they're back at emptying their feed at an accelerated rate.

We believe Junie is the least effective forager of our hens, and she is always the last to peck at treats, too; she's toward the bottom of the pecking order. If she isn't eating as much feed as she should, it stands to follow that she'd miss out on a balanced diet.

Lesson learned: my chickens prefer the crumble. Fingers crossed she'll do better from here on out!