Tonight I came home from work and went to close up the chickens.. on the landing in front of the nesting boxes was a weird looking thing.. looked like an egg with no shell? It's all floppy and I did notice what looked like yoke and the membrane soft shell laying on the board.. there were some pine shavings on this, so it made it more difficult to examine.. my girls each laid an egg this AM and have been laying since Oct... Do you think someone was trying to lay a 2nd egg today and it never formed a shell? So far, I have never gotten 2 eggs in a day from any of the girls... (My chickens are 4 Rhode Island Reds, 1 New Hampshire for hens, 2 Roo's that are New Hampshire's) ..
Yeah, Sounds like a shellless egg. Unless it happens a lot it is perfectly normal. http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publi...ndbook/16/thinshelled-eggs-and-shellless-eggs Imp
Thank you.. is it normal if she has already laid and egg today? Do hens usually lay once a day or some times more? They have been on layer feed since Oct when they began laying....
It's rare that a hen will lay 2 in a day, but it can happen. They are on a cycle that doesn't quite sync with days. Also in new layers oddities will occur more frequently as they work out the details of making eggs. It's usually not a problem unless it occurs frequently. Some hens need a little more calcium in the diet, and/or some illnesses can cause problems with egglaying. I don't think that this is the case with your hens. Sounds like your hen just was in a hurry. Imp- you didn't squeeze her did you? btw- just joking about the squeezing.
I am wondering if the heat lamp has messed up their cycle.. It was coming on at about 12:20am and off around the time the sun comes up.. last night I changed it to come on later (2am) as it was not bitter cold last night as the previous nights.. I noticed the red heat lamp does wake them up, which I originally thought the red light would not disturb their sleep, but it has.. I know there have been many posts about using a heat lamp and not using.. I guess I just feel like it's so darn cold outside, this will take a bit of the freezing chill off for a little bit of the night time hours.... Maybe this has created some cycle disturbances.. or I may be over analyzing the whole thing.. ha! ??
