Eggs tasteless, odd texture, and thin shells.

I'm having issues with my flock.

The past couple months we started getting thinner eggshells, lighter yolks. There was one chicken that was REALLY aggressively picking on the other chickens and we gave her a few 2 year old chickens to a friend. In May, a chicken died with no prior symptoms, and no signs of stress.

Now last week, another chicken just dropped dead. I would say the past two weeks, our shells have been thinner, yolks lighter, and whites runny. The texture of the cooked whites is "flabby" and unpleasant in the mouth. I guess you could call it chalky, it reminds me of the white stuff in a fresh-boiled lobster (not taste, but texture)...random analogy, I know, lol.

Are the chickens just older? they are probably 2-3 years old which I did not think was "old" for a chicken. They are producing 4-6 a week for each chicken. They free range once a week, have free choice oyster shell, cold fresh water with cider vinegar available at all times.

The only problems lately have been with finches & starlings breaking into the coop and eating the feed. We've been working to eradicate them.

Thanks for any suggestions.

-Summer

 

Anyone?

 

Sorry I was MIA, Thanks for getting some answers here.

To answer:

Feed -- We're currently doing a higher protein gamebird feed. It's what we fed the winter of 09-10, and we normally switch back to layer feed. When we did this year, production (on what was 10 birds at the time) went down to two eggs a day for ten days. Switched back to gamebird, and it ramped up within 48 hours. They don't eat a lot of it between kitchen scraps, free ranging, etc.

Calcium -- they get free choice oyster shell, their own shells back maybe 5 X a month, plus occassional yogurt/cottage cheese treats.

I don't think the heat is as bad as it has been, it was over 100 here for weeks last year and they were fine. Drop in production but that was it. It's been in the eighty-ish range. We have shade cloth over portions of the run, and a fan in the coop running night/day.

I was concerned last month that they might have had that Bronchitis thing, we had two wrinkly eggs, but they never appeared again so I just called it a fluke.

I have not treated them for mites in two months (I didn't see any, I just spray occassionally) and I haven't wormed them since fall (precautionary). I'm leaning more towards the wild birds causing an issue? They are starlings, finches, and something my husband calls spatzies or rat-birds. If only my terrier killed the bad birds faster...she only gets a few a week (not chickens).

I did check them for mites, couldn't see any, but there has been some feather pulling. My vet was closed for a fourth holiday, should I call him? I honestly don't want to spend $100 to take a chicken to the vet, I'm more inclined to cull, scour the coop/run and start over with new chickens.