Does Anyone Know of a Water Soluble Calcium Supplement?

[AmyJane725]

Hi, guys,

I've got a hen that, despite being on layer crumbles, constantly has soft egg issues. She won't eat oyster shells (despite needing them), and I'm wondering if there's any kind of a water soluble calcium supplement I could just mix into her water to make sure she's getting enough?

I have calcium gluconate powder right now, but it just settles out of water, as it doesn't actually dissolve.

Barring this my choices are pretty much to syringe it to her every day or dust wet treats in it and give those to her.

And any any insight on why she won't eat the shells? She pretty much just picks them up, "tastes" them and spits them out again.

Any help is much appreciated.

 

[Sally PB]

This is not an answer to your question, but it might be of help.

I cut a calcium citrate pill into 4 pieces. I put a bit of peanut butter on a piece, and the pullet I need to dose will eat it.

The very first time, she picked it up, dropped it, picked it up, ran off with it, dropped it, looked at it, and then ate it. The second piece she ate right away.

Thanks to azygous for this tip.

 

[alinas2010]

Also not exactly an answer, but Walmart has generic calcium citrate plus D3 pills that have been a lifesaver for my little Ravioli who lays soft eggs and gets egg bound at times. They come in petites size, too. I give her 1 and a half or 2 depending on how bad things are. Ravioli is reluctant to take them herself, so I kneel down behind her use one hand/arm to kind of hug her into my chest or knees and pull down her wattles (gently) and pop one pill in at a time. She swallows right away. Sometimes it takes a few attempts because she can be wiggly. I’ve also crushed them up into egg yolk or sprinkled on scrambled eggs. I think that works, too. We do this once a day for about a week until she returns to laying normal again. We also cut out treats completely when she has laying problems so she is getting proper nutrition from feed and not filling up on “junk food”. @Sally PB i haven’t heard that trick, I’ll have to try it!

 

[Sally PB]

We also cut out treats completely when she has laying problems so she is getting proper nutrition from feed and not filling up on “junk food”.

My chickens' favorite "treat" is their regular feed, wetted into a mash. It's your regular feed, silly birds! It's also a great way to use up the fine bits they won't eat that fall to the bottom of the bowl. I give them this every day; no worries about using it for a treat.

@AmyJane725, if you can separate the bird you're worried about, maybe you could chop up a calcium pill and mix it with a bit of mash, just for her?

I did the "pull gently on wattles" to get a bird to open her beak. Yes, it works! If you can have a second person to help, it might be better. Pip, the pullet in question, HATED it, and thrashed. She started avoiding me, so I was very glad to learn the peanut butter trick.

 

[Eggcessive]

They sell calcium gluconate injectable liquid at most feed stores for cattle. Have you tried to give her oral calcium citrate with vitamin D? Most chickens will take a tablet whole if you put it into her beak to swallow. If you know the dosage of the powder I would think that you could give it in some watery feed or egg, just enough that she would eat.

Can you tell us what type of problem she has had, such as thin shelled or shell-less egg? Has she become egg bound any? If you have supplemented calcium for up to a week with 300-600 mg per day, then she may have a shell gland problem, not a calcium deficiency.

 

[alinas2010]

My chickens' favorite "treat" is their regular feed, wetted into a mash. It's your regular feed, silly birds! It's also a great way to use up the fine bits they won't eat that fall to the bottom of the bowl. I give them this every day; no worries about using it for a treat.

@AmyJane725, if you can separate the bird you're worried about, maybe you could chop up a calcium pill and mix it with a bit of mash, just for her?

I did the "pull gently on wattles" to get a bird to open her beak. Yes, it works! If you can have a second person to help, it might be better. Pip, the pullet in question, HATED it, and thrashed. She started avoiding me, so I was very glad to learn the peanut butter trick.

I need to be way better about just not giving treats period. I should switch to doing what you do, because ours do love a mashy feed!

 

[CloneFly]

They sell calcium gluconate injectable liquid at most feed stores for cattle. Have you tried to give her oral calcium citrate with vitamin D? Most chickens will take a tablet whole if you put it into her beak to swallow. If you know the dosage of the powder I would think that you could give it in some watery feed or egg, just enough that she would eat.

Can you tell us what type of problem she has had, such as thin shelled or shell-less egg? Has she become egg bound any? If you have supplemented calcium for up to a week with 300-600 mg per day, then she may have a shell gland problem, not a calcium deficiency.

Our vet has recommended the injectable calcium supplement (TSC sells giant bottles of it)

You can add about 10cc per 3gal waterer

 

[Shadrach]

Hopefully SallyPB and alinas2010 posts will have given you some ideas.
Slightly better than dusting wet treats is to make a runny paste with the calcium powder and soak small pieces of bread in the paste and feed those to the chicken. If bread doesn't work, I've used grapes, cheese balls, fish.

As you note with a liquid one is left with either tube feeding or syringe to beak style feeding, both of which aren't much fun.

 

[AmyJane725]

They sell calcium gluconate injectable liquid at most feed stores for cattle. Have you tried to give her oral calcium citrate with vitamin D? Most chickens will take a tablet whole if you put it into her beak to swallow. If you know the dosage of the powder I would think that you could give it in some watery feed or egg, just enough that she would eat.

Can you tell us what type of problem she has had, such as thin shelled or shell-less egg? Has she become egg bound any? If you have supplemented calcium for up to a week with 300-600 mg per day, then she may have a shell gland problem, not a calcium deficiency.

The only calcium I have given is the calcium gluconate (which is powder so I can mix it with some water and suck it up into a syringe and squirt it down her esophagus). I don't have any of the Calcium Citrate with vitamin D. I can get some if that would be a better choice for her though. She is a banty, so the pills would have to be little for her to be able to get them down.

She has had both thin shelled and shell-less eggs. So she might have an actual shell gland problem. She hasn't been egg bound, but about two weeks ago she had a soft/no? shelled egg pop inside of her. She passed the yolk and the albumin the but the deflated beachball membrane/shell? stayed inside of her and she got a life threatening infection. Took her to the vet and he dug the shell out with his finger. She was on antibiotics for 8.5 days and is seemingly back to normal, except all her feathers are falling out now (as of the the day she finished her antibiotics) so I'm hoping just just picked a weird time to molt...I have a call in to the vet. Expecting a call back today hopefully.

She laid a very thin shelled egg at like 2 am this morning which also ruptured but it came out at least. And I'm under the impression they're not supposed to lay while they're molting, which makes me worry that this isn't really a molt...

 

[ChasingChooks]

My hens love crushed eggshells, as another option. I know it's not water soluble, but an idea.