nestleaver1
Songster
Hi everyone,
I wonder if anybody can shed some light on why my chicken has been laying such fragile eggs?
This started 6 months ago now and this one chicken (Creepy) has been consistently laying thin-shelled eggs nearly every day. Sometimes they break on laying, sometimes I manage to get to them and rescue the perfectly good egg inside. Usually they get eaten and make a mess of the nestbox bedding. I have read endless forum posts on this which normally say, needs more calcium OR cull the bird!
Here she is; she is about 2 and a half, a feisty, some might say aggressive, bird. She is chicken #2 in the pecking order of a flock of four and is not going to be culled. She is our favourite chicken (don't tell the others).
She has only recently grown a full set of lovely, fluffy feathers on her back-side, having been bald down below since she came from the chicken farm in August 2011. She once had an impacted crop about 10 months ago, cured with the fresh pineapple treatment, otherwise healthy as anything. There were some redmite in the coop; under control now, just a few around.
They get layers pellets and ad lib crushed eggshells/poultry grit as well as cracked corn porridge with yoghurt and loads of greens. The other three chickens' eggshells are rock hard; sometimes difficult to crack, so I am sure there is no dietary deficiency. They get extra cod-liver oil as well; I thought it might be lack of daylight causing problems with vitamin D production and therefore calcium absorption, but this has been going on for too long now.

This pic shows Creepy chicken's eggshell on the left, compared with another one's shell; you can see daylight through it as there is a very thin layer of calcium.

This is the shell backlit - there is quite a bit of pigment in them usually, brown freckles.

And this is it taken with flash to light the inside. It's not that abnormal but it is annoying to lose an egg every day and it makes a nasty mess in the nest box.
Anyone know what might cause this and whether it might be treatable? I'm thinking she might have a genetic problem with her shell gland and this is it forever. Would be great to have a way of getting her back on track.
Thanks ever so much for your help,
Love the BYC site,
Nestleaver1
I wonder if anybody can shed some light on why my chicken has been laying such fragile eggs?
This started 6 months ago now and this one chicken (Creepy) has been consistently laying thin-shelled eggs nearly every day. Sometimes they break on laying, sometimes I manage to get to them and rescue the perfectly good egg inside. Usually they get eaten and make a mess of the nestbox bedding. I have read endless forum posts on this which normally say, needs more calcium OR cull the bird!
Here she is; she is about 2 and a half, a feisty, some might say aggressive, bird. She is chicken #2 in the pecking order of a flock of four and is not going to be culled. She is our favourite chicken (don't tell the others).
She has only recently grown a full set of lovely, fluffy feathers on her back-side, having been bald down below since she came from the chicken farm in August 2011. She once had an impacted crop about 10 months ago, cured with the fresh pineapple treatment, otherwise healthy as anything. There were some redmite in the coop; under control now, just a few around.
They get layers pellets and ad lib crushed eggshells/poultry grit as well as cracked corn porridge with yoghurt and loads of greens. The other three chickens' eggshells are rock hard; sometimes difficult to crack, so I am sure there is no dietary deficiency. They get extra cod-liver oil as well; I thought it might be lack of daylight causing problems with vitamin D production and therefore calcium absorption, but this has been going on for too long now.
This pic shows Creepy chicken's eggshell on the left, compared with another one's shell; you can see daylight through it as there is a very thin layer of calcium.
This is the shell backlit - there is quite a bit of pigment in them usually, brown freckles.
And this is it taken with flash to light the inside. It's not that abnormal but it is annoying to lose an egg every day and it makes a nasty mess in the nest box.
Anyone know what might cause this and whether it might be treatable? I'm thinking she might have a genetic problem with her shell gland and this is it forever. Would be great to have a way of getting her back on track.
Thanks ever so much for your help,
Love the BYC site,
Nestleaver1