Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Lady Red]

Mugshot Monday.
Pretty sure this is Freya.
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Love!

 

[Lady Red]

Ok, maybe I should clarify. I admire what a great job you are doing as a newbie. When I was new, I had a one-year-old start laying soft shells and a soft one broke inside. I had no idea about calcium supplements or antibiotics. I also didn’t know how to bathe a chicken and had her in a full-sized tub! Poor thing. She declined rapidly over the weekend and almost died. I took her to an avian vet who diagnosed egg yolk peritonitis, drained yolky fluid, rinsed (lavaged) her coelemic cavity, and prescribed antibiotics. I was a mess. With this care and a hormone implant, she got another six months, but I wonder if she would have fared better if I had done calcium right away. You’re doing great with Naenae!

What an ordeal!
I'd have been a mess too.

 

[Lady Red]

I just hand fed my ladies some feta cheese left over from a salad, I was lucky to survive with all fingers still intact

You're fortunate blood wasn't drawn...that's probably like chumming the waters with those little velociraptors

 

[Lady Red]

Belle is wondering what’s for dinner...
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Mommm! I'm hungry!

 

[Lady Red]

Yup. D3 as well. And I give them crushed egg shell as well as oyster shell.

I had taken to giving them Fage plain whole yogurt mixed with feed and spinach 2-3x a week for extra calcium and that didn't seem to help either (although it is adorable to see yogurt covered beaks).

I'll circle back after a week with all the supplements we've added to give an update, maybe they will work for us and then work for you too.

 

[Lady Red]

Thanks MJ. I read the article but none of the causes listed make any sense in this case. I really hate to isolate her because that will definitely stress her out. So far I really think it only happens to broken eggs. Which is back to the shell issue.
Honestly in a way I was happy to see that she had put any shell on at all.

Drawing parallels between our girls, I agree that a soft shelled egg is a sporting event that doesn't translate to eating a normal egg. It seems they are just curious, and given how they move normal eggs around from one nest box to another over here, she may have just been trying to move it and the discovered it was edible.
Just a theory...

 

[Lady Red]

Monday! Here is Tacky with her floppy comb

And Whip in her tall comb glory

And Piscia feeling a little envious

 

[featherhead007]

Mommm! I'm hungry!

Probably “mommy, what’s on TV?”

 

[BY Bob]

Monday mug (and happy 4th of July to you guys over there)
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Great photo!

 

[BY Bob]

The truth is even stranger
I have mentioned that both Elizabeth and Diana have been having shell issues. Diana had an egg break inside her and has been laying eggs with very thin shells.
Elizabeth meanwhile I thought was laying eggs with no shells based on smears of yolk left in the nest box.
The truth seems to be however that her eggs do have a thin shell and this is what she is doing.

She isn't doing that to anyone else's eggs so I assume it broke in the nest.
I am trying calcium supplements but they don't seem to be making much of a difference.

Well she is at least cleaning up. I'm so sorry.

The cameras are invaluable when trying to spot what is actually going on. What is your plan from here?