I have several different breeds of hens. Some of these have no feathers around their vent/behind while some do. I am perplexed about this. Does anyone have any idea why some do and some don't? What is this caused by? Is there anything I can do for those that don't? I also have some hens who are eating eggs. I have tried golf balls in the nesting boxes and also collecting the eggs more frequently, but am still finding 1-3 eggs broken/cracked. Any suggestions would be most appreciated. Thank You!!
I have a feeling you have a lot of external (and maybe internal) parasites who are depleting your hens of nutrients so you need to start them on a worming delousing program using the advice in this forum. You also need to provide them with some calcium (oyster shell) and maybe a little protein. A can of cat food, crumbled hardboiled eggs (with the shells).
My hens had this for a while. You can try worming them but my hens were molting, and pecking each others feather's out. I put the hens who didn't have any feathers in a cage by themselves and gave them extra goodies, and things that were rich in natural vitamins such as fruit and small invertebrate. If they laid an egg I would break it open and give it back to them. Within about 2 months they had all their feathers back and were laying well. For the broken eggs it could be a number of things, most hens don't just break open eggs and eat them, they have to be broken in the first place. If you don't have enough bedding in the nest boxes sometimes when they lay the egg lands on the hard bottom of the box and the shell isn't hard enough to survive the impact so it breaks. Try givinf them calcium. It could also be that when other hens come to lay they step on the eggs and break them. But it seems more like a calcium deficiency. I just get a bottle of calcium vitamins from Wal-Mart or GNC, Wal-Mart is cheaper. I put the tablet in a cup with some water, and let it dissolve. Then when I change their water at night I pour the dissolved vitamin in their waterer and then fill the rest with water. I would do this once a week until your laying picks up or there are no more broken eggs then I would continue for regular maintenance about once a month. Hope this helps!!!
