First egg soft shell.

[Hennie]

Has anyone ever had a first layer lay it's first egg with a soft shell? She has access to plenty of grit.
Can this be rectified? Thank you for a reply.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It is certainly not unusual for the first few eggs to be strange in some way, soft shell, no shell, no yolk, double yolk, yolk with no white, shell misformed, whatever. When a pullet starts laying her internal egg laying factory is not always in sinc. It sometimes takes it a while to mature, especially if she starts laying fairly young. It is also not unusual for her to just drop her first few eggs anywhere, like from the roost or in the coop floor. She's young and does not have her system under control yet. If this persists for two weeks, then you might have a problem. Right now, you should not be concerned.

Good luck and congratulations on the first egg.

 

[teach1rusl]

Agreed. New layers often time go through shell mishaps until their system works the kinks out. Two of my birds did, but things were fine within two weeks or so.

 

[JetBlack]

Will the chickens make their own nests, like out of lawn grass, or do I need to provide them with straw, with which to build?

 

[Ridgerunner]

You need to put about three inches of straw, dried grass clippings, wood shavings (not wood chips), shredded paper, cleaned Spanish moss, something for them to use as nesting material. They will not gather material and carry it to the nest but will create a hollow to lay in. They will shape the nest. You do not have to. You need a 3" to 5" lip on the bottom of the nest to help keep them from scratching this material out while they are shaping the nest.

 

[Hennie]

Thank you all so much for the information, she has a lovely nesting box with sugarcane mulch, lovely stuff, that came on the market last year and comes in a bale, very tightly compacted, we put it in all the nest boxes their night house and around the garden and trees to keep moisture in. We live in the southern part of Australia and have gone through about 7 years of drought, after a period of lovely rain in Febr this year, a lot of Australia had flooding rains, the drought has finally been lifted. Hopefully the weather pattern has changed now for the better.
Once again many thanks to all of you people for always being there to answer our questions.
We just love this website, it's the best.

 

[chuckzoo]

And we love you too Aussie!

 

[Hennie]

Chuckzoo, the feeling is mutual lol

you are all such nice people.

Caretaker of 2 kangaroos, 5 Wallabies, 9 Hens and one mother hen with 4 chicks, hope they are not all roosters lol, and not to be forgotten 2 little doggies.
Cheers,
Hennie

 

[Chick CJ]

Quote:
It is not uncommon for a hens first egg to be off the first few times and it will most likely rectify itself. However, access to grit doesn't have anything to do with it. I think you might be thinking of calcium which can be added to the diet in the form of ground oyster shell or even finely ground egg shells. But if you are feeding layer feed to your hens you should be okay. I have noted here on BYC that some people make it available to their hens even when feeding layer feed.
Congratulations on your first egg though! And many more to come!!
CJ

 

[Jeeper1540]

My Light Brown Leghorn layed a soft egg for his first time

"Fred Jr."