Fresh greens and free range time helps with that. As will marigold flowers (they love them, by the way. I grew a border of marigolds once....they got into it and devoured the WHOLE. STINKING. BED - just a few ratty looking main stalks left! But, they had bright yolks for a good week or so!!

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Good to know! I shall grow some in that case. I think my yolks are pretty good though. And apparently looking quite fertile.
 
Don’t the fox get them? Can’t they dig out their burrows?
For woodchucks you can divert them by poring cat litter into their holes they say, they hate it. We’ve done that and they don’t use that hole anymore.
Rodent tax
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Awwwww 💕 everyone is snoozing away - I love it ❤️ So wonderful seeing them all snuggled up sleeping.
 
Fresh greens and free range time helps with that. As will marigold flowers (they love them, by the way. I grew a border of marigolds once....they got into it and devoured the WHOLE. STINKING. BED - just a few ratty looking main stalks left! But, they had bright yolks for a good week or so!!

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Most of my yard is bare soil and mulch (it was a carpet of invasive ivy and blackberries when we moved in, but once removed was too steep and shady for grass to be an option. Revegetating is slow going, but we’re putting in mostly native perennials, which the chickens don’t find delicious). So letting them range just means eating crickets and worms, not greens.

This last month I have been adding calendula flowers to their morning mash but it’s awfully labor intensive for the results.
And although I feel embarrassed about it, I actually fill bags up with greens that I nab from the local grocery store’s compost bin. But that is also labor intensive and not something I can get around to more than once every week or two. They eat a three gallon bag down in like 15 minutes and don’t even say thank you!
 
It seems (from google) that fully formed eggs with shells are usually pretty obvious on X-rays. She might have had the soft shell one in there, but would you have managed to palpate that from the exterior? Maybe.
I’ll bet that somewhere along her gut, either the gizzard itself or a bunch of intestines, were swollen due to infection or worms and that has subsided since she’s being treated.
Yes agreed - oh I felt that egg for sure ! It was really obvious, the vet initially agreed but that X-ray was the thing that didn’t back it up, she did say soft shelled eggs wouldn’t show up.

At any rate the wormer and the antibiotics likely helped with the egg movement.

I palpated that egg this morning and the mass was still there - now it’s gone yay! So I am sure it was the soft egg.
 
Most of my yard is bare soil and mulch (it was a carpet of invasive ivy and blackberries when we moved in, but once removed was too steep and shady for grass to be an option. Revegetating is slow going, but we’re putting in mostly native perennials, which the chickens don’t find delicious). So letting them range just means eating crickets and worms, not greens.

This last month I have been adding calendula flowers to their morning mash but it’s awfully labor intensive for the results.
And although I feel embarrassed about it, I actually fill bags up with greens that I nab from the local grocery store’s compost bin. But that is also labor intensive and not something I can get around to more than once every week or two. They eat a three gallon bag down in like 15 minutes and don’t even say thank you!
Ya ungrateful little velociraptors!
 

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