- Feb 19, 2013
- 48
- 1
- 36
Last night we let our girls into the yard and one (who almost always lays early in the day, like 8am) sat down under a bush, looking like she was planning to lay an egg. Then she got up, stood around for a minute, and I looked over and saw a yolk and a pile of wet (assuming it was the white). There was something hanging from her vent and hubby pulled out a long, narrow, whitish glob that looked like a squished up shell and membrane. She acted really weird for a few minutes, just standing there. I've never seen my hens stand still for so long without pecking at something. After 7 minutes or so she seemed to go back to normal and wander around eating.
I am guessing this is what a shell-less egg is, but I'm confused as to why she just dropped it while standing there, and why she seemed to be uncomfortable or weird afterward. Also, she is usually an early morning layer and it was about 8pm. We had only gotten 3 eggs that day (out of 5 hens) and our usual is 3-4, we've only had one 5 egg day.
I have a dish of roasted crushed egg shell in their pen, and they eat layer feed so calcium should be good. We were free-ranging them for a good portion of the day, but the past two or three days we have only let them out a little in the evening, because they are eating our garden, pooping all over the kids' main play area, and escaping from our yard. They have a very large pen (about 200 sq. ft.) so they should be ok on space. Plenty of water too. Think she was reacting to not being out in the yard yesterday? I'm a little worried it might happen again and I've gotten myself all freaked out about egg binding and other crazy issues.
I am guessing this is what a shell-less egg is, but I'm confused as to why she just dropped it while standing there, and why she seemed to be uncomfortable or weird afterward. Also, she is usually an early morning layer and it was about 8pm. We had only gotten 3 eggs that day (out of 5 hens) and our usual is 3-4, we've only had one 5 egg day.
I have a dish of roasted crushed egg shell in their pen, and they eat layer feed so calcium should be good. We were free-ranging them for a good portion of the day, but the past two or three days we have only let them out a little in the evening, because they are eating our garden, pooping all over the kids' main play area, and escaping from our yard. They have a very large pen (about 200 sq. ft.) so they should be ok on space. Plenty of water too. Think she was reacting to not being out in the yard yesterday? I'm a little worried it might happen again and I've gotten myself all freaked out about egg binding and other crazy issues.
