Egg shell abnormalities, please help!

[BamburghFarms]

We are having some abnormalities in our egg shells and are newbie chicken folks, can y’all tell us what we need to be adding to/taking out of their diets and please tell me that weird spider-y looking mark in my EE green egg isn’t a peck mark!!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

What are your nests bedded with? The spider web is a crack in the egg from hitting hard when laid probably. The other is the pigment scratched off in spots. In some brown eggshells the pigment is quite wet when laid and can be scratched off. I would collect more often too to avoid too many eggs in a nest.

 

[BamburghFarms]

What are your nests bedded with? The spider web is a crack in the egg from hitting hard when laid probably. The other is the pigment scratched off in spots. In some brown eggshells the pigment is quite wet when laid and can be scratched off. I would collect more often too to avoid too many eggs in a nest.

Thanks so much!! That’s great info!! We use straw and pine chip bedding in our nesting boxes and the boxes themselves are plastic milk crates. We collect once a day usually but make sure it’s all empty for roost time. We have several boxes but our hens all want the same one to nest in no matter how we arrange them or what they are made out of or where we put them etc. It’s making me insane!! Lol

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Do you use ceramic eggs? Hens like to lay where there are other eggs, so by putting ceramic eggs in multiple nests you can spread out the laying. My guess is the straw is scratching off the brown egg coating. There's nothing wrong with them, they just don't look as pretty.

 

[BamburghFarms]

Do you use ceramic eggs? Hens like to lay where there are other eggs, so by putting ceramic eggs in multiple nests you can spread out the laying. My guess is the straw is scratching off the brown egg coating. There's nothing wrong with them, they just don't look as pretty.

That’s great news! We don’t mind how they look, only how they taste! Lol We use golf balls for our “fake eggs” but they all still prefer one box over the others. We tried to get someone to go broody when we had to egg withold for seasonal worming and when we left them all in the boxes for a few days, they used two boxes instead of just the one but I also have 9 currently laying hens out of 17 birds lol so they best learn to share better!! We have young ladies coming up on laying age and plenty of boxes!! They need to get a grip!