Hen laying soft shell eggs everyday...and egg bound

[vantain]

I have one hen out of three that is having trouble with eggs. She is 6 months old, and has been laying for about 5 weeks now steadily. Good hard shelled eggs. In the past 5 days, she has not laid any hard shelled eggs. What is happening, is that around 4-5pm every day, she gets lethargic, sitting by herself, no eating or drinking, obviously in pain. Then, usually within a few hours of this, she does the penguin thing, and drops a soft shelled egg, which she then tries to eat. After this, she is fine again till the next day, and all this repeats again. I have had to help her along twice, by giving the warm bath and dose of calcium..etc..etc. I just don't know what is going on with this bird. They are all eating Purina Layena crumbles, and have free choice oyster shell if they want it. We don't give them many treats, though occasionally some meal worms and at times some yogurt or apples. I usually give them about an hour a day to free range in the yard (most days, not all), the rest of the time they are in an 8x8 covered run.

I have read everything I can here about calcium, vitamin D3..etc...I just don't understand what is wrong with my bird. Anyone have any ideas on what might have gone wrong, and how to potentially correct it? Thanks.

 

[SueT]

Welcome to BYC! Soft eggs are hard to pass, and it is their instinct to eat them. It sounds like you are doing everything right. Sometimes there are glitches in young layers, hopefully this will resolve itself.
I will be interested in hearing from the experts with more experience on this.
Good luck,
Sue

 

[Eggcessive]

Welcome to BYC. It sounds like she is developing some problems which can lead to impacted oviduct and egg binding. I would try giving a human calcium tablet with vitamin D3 for 3 days, and see if it makes a difference. Make sure that she is drinking plenty of water. Maybe getting them outside for a longer period, placing a few water bowls, and throwing out some crushed egg shells to peck at might help. Here is some reading about impacted oviduct:
https://www.merckvetmanual.com/poul...tem/egg-bound-or-impacted-oviducts-in-poultry

http://www.regenbiocorps.com/index.php/poultry-diseases/17-disorders-of-reproductive-systems

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It sounds like you are feeding properly and since she is your only pullet exhibiting the problem it could be something besides nutrition. Infectious bronchitis and egg drop syndrome can also cause shell-less eggs.
As you know, there is a delicate balance between calcium, phosphorus and D3. There should be a 10:1 ratio between calcium and phosphorus for layers. It sounds like she was a prolific layer and she may have depleted some of her body stores of calcium.
If you can find a good avian vet with poultry experience, that may be something to explore.
She's probably too young to molt this year but if it were me, I'd try to force molt her which will cause her to cease ovulation. That would give her oviduct time to reboot.
You can do so by limiting her time in light to about 8 hours a day.

 

[vantain]

Just a little more information. My hens are ISA Browns. Yeah..I know..not the best choice, but I'm a new chicken owner and didn't know all the details about chickens when I selected them.

In any case, the hen in question first started laying at 15 weeks. So yes, I'm thinking that was a bit too early. She was, and still is, the most developed of the four. At the time of first lay, she was on grower/finisher feed. I did not switch to layer until all the birds had started laying. The last of the four started laying a couple of weeks ago. Basically, all of them starting laying shy of 20 weeks.

She laid great eggs until about five days ago, when the soft shells started happening. On the first day this happened, she had laid a perfectly normal egg in the morning, then a soft shell in the afternoon, along with the lethargic response, until the soft shell has been laid, then she's back to normal. On the second day this happened, she laid TWO soft shelled eggs within 30 minutes of one another. Since then, it has been one per day, late afternoon as I mentioned earlier.

I did start giving her a calcium/D3 supplement (SpringValley-Walmart 600mg calcium/800IU Vitamin D3) in yogurt yesterday and today, as I saw mentioned by others in the forum to similar soft shell eggs issues. Maybe it's too soon to know if this is helping or not, or maybe this is just making things worse. I just don't know.

--ChickenCanoe...if I did force a molt, how would I go about this? Just bring her inside earlier in the day and put in a dark room till morning? Sunrise here is around 6-6:30am, sunset is about 7:45. Chickens are usually on their roost in the evening at 8pm. Is this the best course of action, or should I give the calcium/d3 supplement a couple more days to see what happens?

I'm guessing all this is due to starting to lay too soon? Having chickens for the first time is harder than I thought it would be...ha..

 

[vantain]

It sounds like you are feeding properly and since she is your only pullet exhibiting the problem it could be something besides nutrition. Infectious bronchitis and egg drop syndrome can also cause shell-less eggs.
As you know, there is a delicate balance between calcium, phosphorus and D3. There should be a 10:1 ratio between calcium and phosphorus for layers. It sounds like she was a prolific layer and she may have depleted some of her body stores of calcium.
If you can find a good avian vet with poultry experience, that may be something to explore.
She's probably too young to molt this year but if it were me, I'd try to force molt her which will cause her to cease ovulation. That would give her oviduct time to reboot.
You can do so by limiting her time in light to about 8 hours a day.

I'm in Minnesota..is egg drop syndrome even possible in the USA? I heard it's not likely. If it was IB, what other symptoms might be present? She is acting totally normal after and until the next soft shell episode.

 

[Eggcessive]

You can stop her from laying over several days by placing her in darkness for 16 hours a day out of every 24. During the 8 hours, she could walk around, dust bathe, eat and drink and socialize. But I don’t know if that would force a molt.

It really sounds like she is having reproductive problems with impacted oviduct. I would try the calcium and vitamin D3. An avian vet or perhaps a regular vet may be able to stop her from laying for several months with a hormone implant, or with a hormone injection for a week or so. I don’t have experience with the supraloren implants, but you may find info online.

 

[Eggcessive]

Infectious bronchitis is a respiratory disease which mainly causes frequent sneezing. It can cause a slow down of laying, and eggs can be wrinkly shelled, thin shelled, or have watery albumens. Apparently, there can be subclinical cases where one might not realize the chickens were sick. I believe I had IB once a few years ago, and it would have been hard to not notice the sneezing, since it tends to spread through the flock over weeks or months.

 

[vantain]

Infectious bronchitis is a respiratory disease which mainly causes frequent sneezing. It can cause a slow down of laying, and eggs can be wrinkly shelled, thin shelled, or have watery albumens. Apparently, there can be subclinical cases where one might not realize the chickens were sick. I belive I had IB once a few years ago, and it would have been hard to not notice the sneezing, since it tends to spread through the flock over weeks or months.

No sneezing of any kind

 

[Eggcessive]

Here is some info on hormone implants to stop laying, and there is more info online:
http://www.poultrydvm.com/drugs/deslorelin
https://www.exoticpetmedicine.com/article/S1557-5063(12)00206-6/pdf