Consistently laying shell less, liquid egg. Help!

[Mdavchicks]

Hi- I have a barred rock hen who is 12 months old and has been a great egg layer. She recently laid 2 soft shell eggs and now for the past 5 days she has laid a shell-less egg on the poop shelf every night. The shell is completely missing, not even a soft shell is present. I believe the other hens are eating most of the yolk because there is a small amount of the yellow yolk left, but mainly the albumen is left when I come in the morning.

When we saw her lay the soft shell egg there was a bit of white chunky material on the outside of the soft shell (very small amount) which made me think she might have an infection, or early stages of lash egg. It did not look like the pictures of lash egg I have seen as it was white, not yellow, and only half a dime size amount. I have not seen any more of that material since then.

I ordered aqua-ceph and am going to follow directions I found on here when it comes in today. Cephalexin treats E.coli infections well and my research showed that E.coli is usually the culprit in both lash egg and peritonitis.

The other thing I was concerned about was egg peritonitis, but her abdomen doesn't seem full, so I am not sure if it's that but am looking for any input!

She is acting normal- eating well, being active, eating oyster shells. She is on a great diet, we feed grower feed because of our rooster and offer multiple locations for oyster shells. Her poop is normal. The only one thing that could be different is she is sleeping further away from the other chickens. She could have been doing that before and now that I am paying attention to where she ends up on the roost I am noticing it.

She did have a dirty rear end, and often has an issue with that. Her poop is normal but her booty is so fluffy that the poop gets caught in the feathers. I have cleaned her up.

I am unable to take her to a vet as none of our vets in our area will see chickens.

What do y'all think this could be? Am I on the right track with cephalexin? Should I be doing anything else? Thank you so much for any advice!!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

She is acting normal- eating well, being active, eating oyster shells.

Photos of the eggs?

Have you given her extra Calcium?
You can find Calcium Citrate with D3 (600mg) in the vitamin aisle of stores like Walmart, CVS, etc. Give 1 tablet daily, just pull down on her wattles, pop the tablet into the beak and let her swallow.

 

[gtaus]

Have you given her extra Calcium?

That was my first thought, too. I have a separate calcium feeder that is available 24/7. The hens don't eat from it very often, but it's there in case they have a need. Also, I will crush up egg shells from time to time and toss them into the chicken run. I don't know how much the chickens eat or get scratched down into the litter, but the eggshells seem to disappear in only hours.

Are you providing a good quality balanced feed with calcium to your flock? You might want to put your hen into a chicken hospital pen and limit her feed to only quality balance commercial food - no treats - and fresh water to see if she cleans up. Good luck.