Hen squeezing out yoke

[rbum]

5 year old Barred Rock hen laying without shell. Often give her protein but she’ll used to be soft now often has no shell. Any suggestions oyster shells not working.

 

[Amz87]

This is from a page I follow on face book (these are ducks though not chickens)
I’ve learnt from their experience that this is really common in chickens and ducks and is quite deadly if it’s not rectified. They explained that their girls have hormone implants to stop them from laying eggs. Obviously this isn’t something that a lot of people are willing to do (or if many vets will actually do it)


*We’ve had a few comments about how it might be harder on the girls to take them to the vet and give them hormone implants than it would to just be let them lay their eggs “naturally” (and die?) Just to be 100% clear, we would not subject our girls to unneeded meds just to get them to stop laying eggs unless it was necessary. We were scared of giving them hormones in the beginning, but when you see the change that takes place in your baby when she is no longer a slave to a painful cycle of near death experiences, everyday, then believe me it’s worth it. After their implant kicks in they are happier, more playful, and literally lighter than before. The side effects are minimal and they barely seem to notice them. Medical intervention for animals with serious health problems is both necessary and kind. There is no doubt in my mind that Dusty and Otter would have met a painful death already without it. When they started having problems about 6 months into laying (could no longer form shells consistently and had malformed eggs) we racked our brains and asked everyone we could what was wrong. We upped their calcium, gave calcium orally from the vet and tried every calcium supplement imaginable. They eat a fortified layer feed, forage daily, get healthy snacks and have 24/7 access to oyster shell. But they still had unsolvable problems. Our vets answer was just that this happens to some birds and you can wait it out until they stop laying naturally (hoping they survive that long) or try giving them hormone implants to stop the laying. We opted for the implants and it has saved their lives. We still don’t know why they both have issues. It’s pretty random for two non biologically related birds to have similar problems, but they may have had respiratory infections as babies which they acquired from farm store where they were purchased. It can damage reproductive organs as they grow up. Maybe it’s luck of the draw and they both got dealt a bad hand. Its possible as all domestic birds are bred to be disposable creatures. We don’t know, but we do our best for them everyday*

 

[rbum]

Thank you for the reply. I may do just that.