Fairy Egg Layer

[Pellers]

My buff orpington hen, Linda, has never been a very good layer. She has laid a lot of soft shell eggs in her life, lol. Now that she's around 3 years old, she's laying fairy eggs. The funny thing is, the shells on the fairy eggs are strong and normal, there's just no yolk. I'm assuming she's going through henopause, so not really looking for advice, just thought I would share as it seems so odd that her shells are healthy now but her eggs are fairy eggs. Someone in my flock is also crowing (6 hens, NO roosters for sure) and based on older posts about fairy eggs I wonder if it is her? Good thing I've got 4 more chicks on order this year lol.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The vast majority of hens are going to lay fairly standard eggs. There will be some occasional glitches or idiosyncrasies but those are generally the exceptions, not the rule. They still lay a lot of good eggs.

But every now and then you can get an exception. Something is just not right about their internal egg making factory. It is nothing you did, just a birth defect.

A reason the shells may be better on those fairy eggs is that a hen often makes a certain amount of shell material each day. When she was laying regular sized eggs she wasn't making enough shell material to make thick shells. With the smaller eggs it is enough to make a decently thick shell. If the others are laying regular eggs there is enough calcium available, she just wasn't eating enough or her body was not processing it correctly. Just a guess.

Good luck on those four chicks!