I have one pullet who has been laying for over 5 months and she still lays a totally or half soft shelled egg. Only once is a while will she lay a good egg. Is there anything I can do, or is this just her personal problem? There is always oyster shell available, plus FLock BLock, which I think is supposed to have oyster shell in there.
So, a question I might have is, what is her regular feed? Is she on a layer feed? Also, I had one that was laying soft shell or thin shelled eggs to begin with. I noticed that she wasn't eating the oyster shell so I added crushed egg shell to the oyster shell. She is laying well now, but I don't know if the egg shell was the cure. I also read on one of the thread here that sometimes it just might be genetics. I have also read that sometimes adding vitamin D to the water will help with absorption of calcium, although I have never tried that.
Could be a Vitamin D deficiency. Try giving a good water salable Vitamin/ Mineral mix. Vitamin D deficiency occurs worldwide in poultry of all ages. It is caused by a deficiency of vitamin D3 in the diet. Vitamin D3 is needed for proper calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) metabolism and in the formation of normal skeleton. Vitamin D3 is needed for proper metabolism of calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P), and in the formation of normal skeleton, hard beaks and claws, and strong eggshells. Chris
She gets Purina Layer feed. I figured she was getting all the calcium possible, and the problem was somewhere else. I will look for a vitamin supplement -thanks!!!! I appreciate the help!
Adding vitamins to the water isn't a great solution. First you risk overdosing the birds who do not have a problem or even the one you are targeting and second once the body adjusts to an excess of something you can end up with a deficiency when you stop so you end up having to supplement that vitamin/mineral for the rest of their life. Personally if 1 hen out of several was having an issue I'd live with it or cull (cull can mean sell and doesn't have to mean kill) for the sake of the rest of the birds and future health of the flock. I definitely wouldn't try to hatch any eggs from that one at the risk of getting a whole bunch more bad layers. If several hens are having issues I'd cut treats including the flock block and/or switch brands of feed. The Ca of a flock block does appear to be 4:1 but I don't know what the exact values are. You can have 1/100th their necessary daily calcium and still have a high Ca if you have even less phosphorous. If that were the case you could still see a calcium deficiency. It is far better to tweak the diet with natural sources of a vitamin or feed change than to add a powdered supplement. You won't run in to half as many issues unless you do something extreme like replacing too much of the diet with one food or trying to mix your own feed without enough knowledge. Illness can also cause egg formation problems and weird shells.
I was going to isolate her and try some vitamin therapy to see if it would help, then see if she needed it constantly or if she just needed a "kick" - and thank you, Akane, for verifying my thought that this might be something a hen can pass to progeny - I was wondering if this could be hereditary or not. She was my early layer out of the bunch. She laid her first egg at 17.5 weeks, and did well for a while, then after a month or so, this started. She has no other symptoms of anything being wrong.
