I have an 8 month old Araucana pullet that has been laying misshapen eggs for several weeks now. I believe this all started with a trauma. I came home one evening (about a month and a half ago) to find she had a scrape on her head in the exact same shape as the hardware cloth. At the same time I had a psychotic immature Cooper's hawk around that made several swipes at my chicken run. During one of its attempt at my flock I saw this pullet fly up and into the fence (which is hardware cloth), so I know she has a habit of doing that when she freaks out. A couple of days after the injury she acted eggbound and had not been laying so I brought her in and soaked her in a warm Epsom salts bath. Shortly afterwards she expelled a shell-less egg and started acting better. It took almost a week for her to start laying again but she was inconsistent and a few times dropped them off the roost overnight. Most of them were thin shelled even though she had oyster shell available. Once she became "regular", about 3 weeks ago, she has consistently laid a kidney bean shaped egg. It is much more obvious in person than in the pictures. Here is the best I could do:
I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this problem? If so, is it something she will outgrow and lay normal eggs again? Since its been consistent for 3 weeks now I'm thinking not. I really need to hatch eggs from her as she is one of only 2 tufted hens, but trying to hatch misshapen eggs isn't a good idea is it?
I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this problem? If so, is it something she will outgrow and lay normal eggs again? Since its been consistent for 3 weeks now I'm thinking not. I really need to hatch eggs from her as she is one of only 2 tufted hens, but trying to hatch misshapen eggs isn't a good idea is it?
