Hi, new to the forums and i been looking for an answer and could not find one. I have two americana and black rock hens 4 total. So today i was outside tending to my hens and one of the blackrock hens layed a shell less soft shell egg in the nest than afterwards went outside the coop and pooped out a yolk in front of the rest of the girls. They all swarmed for the freshly layed yolk and gobbled it up before i could have a chance to clean it up. This is the first time i had seen something like this, and i have researched oyster shells and diet and i fulfill the needs of my girls, but now im worried they will become egg eaters. I have notice before and caught the previous egg eater but she stopped. But the egg eater is the one who pooped out the yolk. What should i do? They are 25-26 weeks and look fully grown. But they are still babies. Any advice from the chicken masters out there? Thanks!
The cause of the soft shelled eggs is likely to be the pullets getting their egg-laying equipment in sync and is nothing to worry about. Chickens will gladly eat soft-shelled eggs. In the example you cite, the chickens eating a yolk is nothing to be concerned about. It only becomes an issue when one of them decides that breaking regularly formed eggs. Since there is no visual similarity between a yolk (without shell) and a regular egg I would not be overly concerned about it.
Welcome to BYC! Ditto Ken on the 'egg eating'...soft or thin shelled eggs are fair game. Curiosity pecking on a weak egg can lead to too much investigation of the eggs. I've had pullets do that...using fake eggs and cleaning up the weak ones asap helps. They usually get over it pretty quick. How long has she been laying? What and how exactly are you feeding?
Thanks for the replys, @arrt: Laying started about 2 weeks ago, feed just turned into layer feed i had them finish grower feed. I have free choice oyster shells but they dont like it. I remember my two americanas after laying an egg would go straight and eat the shells but they stopped. As for the two black ones. They slowly started on and offf with the shells but now they just totally blow it off.
