For a while, my birds wouldn't lay but they've kicked up again. Yesterday, i pulled a soft, jello-y/paper-y shelled egg out of the nest box. I assume lack of calcium or new layer. But we also have one bird who seemed VERY interested with the eggs as i collected them. She was the one who started the egg eating last spring. We have oyster shell available and we give them ground egg shell but I think they still have a calcium deficiency. Help!
I don't know how many chickens you have, but if you can identify who is laying the shell-less egg, that can help a lot in figuring out what's going on. Ditto on the free-choice calcium. And plenty of quality, fresh layer feed. Apparently eggs with no shell do just happen, especially in the young and old.
All our chickens show great interest in eggs if we are holding them in our hands. We've only had one instance of egg eating, but I think it was because the egg got rolled out of the nest box as the hen left. Later a different hen came in the coop, found egg the on the floor of the coop (NOT normal), pecked at it (what else is a chicken going to do with a new object) and, surprise, surprise, found that it was good.
We caught her in the act and very quickly scooped up the egg and shavings and got rid of them. Then we re-stocked all the nest boxes with our "training" wooden eggs and even left one of those on the coop floor. We made sure to collect eggs as soon as they were laid for the rest of the day. Ever since we haven't had an issue. One or two pecks on a wood egg seems to be all they need to dissuade them from pecking on other eggs. At least in our experience
Good luck!
