I have a one year old Easter Egger hen who is consistently laying eggs with paper thin shells. Last winter she was attacked by my son's dog and she survived the attack but lost almost all of her tail feathers and a lot of them on her rump. She recovered nicely but did not lay over the winter (I expected she was putting her energy into growing her feathers back). All my birds started laying again in March when the time changed and the days got longer. She started laying again, but since then most of her eggs have been very fragile. Very few of them have been strong enough even for me to bring them inside. I provide my hens with egg laying feed as well as oyster shells. I recently also started adding vitamin D to their water because I heard that if hens don't have enough vitamin D their bodies can't produce the calcium that helps them lay strong eggs. That hasn't seemed to help. She lays about every other day and I usually find the remnant of a broken shell with a yolk inside the nest box that she uses. I think her egg laying parts may have been damaged in the dog attack. Could this be possible? Will she ever get back to laying good eggs again? I'm hoping the rest over the winter will help her. All four of my easter eggers stopped laying in the fall last year and I have already noticed they have slowed down their laying this fall so far. Thanks for any tips or advice.
Fragile Shell
- Thread starter LBakke
- Start date
Hello and welcome to BYC! 
Give her calcium citrate +D3 daily until her eggs go back to normal.
Give her calcium citrate +D3 daily until her eggs go back to normal.
I would try the calcium citrate as noted above. If that does not fix it after a few weeks, then it's likely a shelling gland issue (maybe damaged from the attack).
- Thread starter
- #4
Give the D3 directly to her? Any idea how much? I got the BVS D3 from Meyer Hatchery that I saw recommended from another post on here. Started putting it in the water and it is very diluted. I think I put 2 or 3 tbs in one gallon of water and then 2 tbs of that in their 1 gallon waterer. How much would I give directly to her? The instructions on the label aren't the best.Hello and welcome to BYC!
Give her calcium citrate +D3 daily until her eggs go back to normal.
Where is a good source for calcium citrate?
What you want is calcium citrate +D3 tablets, one tablet once a day until her eggs get better. Try to get some with at least 500mg calcium. You can get it at the grocery store or a pharmacy.
A product like this is recommended, that contains both calcium + Vit D - https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...o-help-an-old-hen-build-an-egg-shell.1522766/
- Thread starter
- #7
Thank you so much! I will see if I can find some tomorrow.
- Thread starter
- #8
I wanted to come back on to say thank you all for the great support and advice. I found the Calcium Citrate at Walmart and picked some up and have given my hen a pill each day for about four days. Today we got a perfect egg from her! This is a very big deal to me because she has not laid a firm egg since she started laying again in March and today her egg was perfect. I know it was hers because I watched her lay it, plus her eggs are so much bigger than everyone elses. Thank you so much! I hope today's success will keep going as I continue to give her the pills every few days.
That's great!
You might want to keep giving her the calcium for a couple more days to make sure anymore eggs she lays have a shell.
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