Found soft shell egg in manure box this morning

[bobbieschicks]

And my only layer, 20 week old Snow White, white leghorn keeps going into the nest box and she's made two nice looking circles, sang the egg song, but hasn't laid a thing. She didn't lay yesterday and the day before was an perfectly formed egg in nest box.

Are these things normal for a new layer? Any chance the soft shell egg was from my Ancona who just turned 17 weeks last Tuesday? I ask because the area where I found the egg was where AC was on the roost last night. They both are white layers or will be.

I feed her Purina start and grow because of the different ages in my flock (youngest 7 weeks) and she gets to free range once a day, she gets oystershell available any time and mealy worms as a a daily treat.

 

[bobbieschicks]

Anyone? I'm trying to figure out how I can feed her layer food without harming the rest of the flock. I'll see what I can come up with if anything.

 

[StarLover21]

Feeding them all layer will be okay.

 

[freestargirl]

My whole flock eats layer ration. There isn't age difference- just 5 hens and rooster. If you need to feed them different things, then I would just catch whoever and feed them accordingly. Good question though, b/c I haven't even thought about how we would feed ours when we try to hatch in the spring once they're in with the big girls.

 

[top of the hill]

As long as the starter isn't medicated and you have oyster shell available you should be fine. Personally, I would ( and have) just feed them layer. Its got extra calcium so bad for the little guys, but ok for the teenager.

 

[bobbieschicks]

I'm thinking of switching to layer for the middle ones (17 weeks old) and oldest (20 weeks) And putting it up high in the coop by raising the feeder. That way the babies who are just 7 weeks old won't be eating it unless it falls to the ground so hopefully they wont consume much of it. Then I'll put chick grower feed medicated kind in the low bowls for the babies. I'll leave oyster shell bag in the coop for her to eat from whenever she needs it.

 

[bobbieschicks]

Quote:
I thought the extra calcium was bad for the babies? I have 8 7 week old chicks in there too.

 

[bobbieschicks]

So I went to TSC and this is what I got:

*40# bag of Purina Layena Plus with Omega 3 and I'm going to put that in the big hanging feeder in the coop - raising it a good 2 inches so the babies can't reach it but the bigs will have no trouble. I think it will be fine for the oldest 4 pullets to eat it and the rooster will maybe want it - but probably he'll prefer the chicken starter feed?
*50# bag of oyster shell which I will cut into and leave laying in the coop for the bigs to have access to at all times. I'm hoping the babies and rooster will be wise enough to leave it alone.
*grabbed a small bag of chick grit for the babies - plan to put that into one of the horse bowls under the coop - the bigs eat alot of sand/DE so I'm not too worried about them.
*50# bag of Purina Start and Grow Medicated to continue feeding the babies out of one of the horse bowl under the coop and I'll put some in the long red feeder in the coop so they have access to food even on bad days.

I also picked up a bag of chicken treat and some cracked corn to occassionally give the layers as a treat and some more mealyworms for treats as well.

Edited to add the light plan: I plan to hook up a rope light inside the coop and use the Christmas tree timer on extension cord to turn it on at 5am/off at 7am & then on at 5pm and off at 7pm. that should give me 14 hours of daylight. I'm hoping the change in diet will help the egg structure and then I'm hoping the artificial lighting will help with the actual laying process.

She hasn't layed her egg today but I know she went into the nest box several times early in the day

I did change the nest material in 2 out of 3 boxes because I ran out of straw - I put pine shavings in the 2 boxes she lays in and the only remaining straw into the 3rd box. Hopefully that won't cause any problems if it does I'll try to find a new source for straw as I know she liked laying down in that stuff

 

[bobbieschicks]

Yesterday I got a perfectly good, but small, egg in the nest box - however it had a bunch of bumps on it - I'm guessing they were excess calcium.

This morning I went to clean and check for eggs - found two softshelled eggs in the sand of the manure box. AND Snow White is wandering around singing the egg song repeatedly. I have no idea what is going on with her - hope her body works it out soon.

Seems like she had a lot of moisture - or maybe that came from the rooster who was sitting next to her on the roost.

We cooked up her six eggs we got since Thanksgiving - they seemed to have harder shells the older the egg got.

 

[bobbieschicks]

So I'll go out to clean this a.m. - hoping I don't find any eggs today (reverse psychology - maybe that will work?). At least I hope I don't find a softshell egg - cause that will make 3 in a row. There weren't any eggs as of 6:30am because I checked when I got home from the Y. Everyone was awake with the early light - the auto door was closed and they were milling around in the coop chatting.