how long before crushed oyster hardens up my hen's shell?

[steveg144]

My hen "Camilla" has been popping out shell-less eggs for the past 5 days. I think it's because, with the warm weather, she blows right past her delicious high-calcium collards and starts foraging. Here housemate, "Nigella," loves her greens and spends the first 10 minutes eating greens before she sets off, and she's had no problem with her shells. As an experiment, I kept them locked up one day with scads of collards and the next morning Camilla's still-soft egg did show a wee bit of shell, but still basically shell-less. Last night I bought a 50# bag of crushed oyster shell, since this sounds like the recommended treatment. I put a small bowl of crushed oyster in their coop, plus scattered a lot on the ground in their coop's "patio" area. Today I plan to keep them locked in so they're forced to eat the collards and peck around in the crushed oyster.

The question i have is, on average how long does it take before getting some crushed oyster shell into her will get my gal Camilla back to normal? Are we talking days? Weeks? I want to give the crushed-shell approach time to work before I start looking into calcium supplements, vet visits, etc.

 

[Casey76]

You couls also try mixing a little fish oil (for Vitamin D3) into their compound feed. The vitamin D will help with the absorption of the calcium.

Be caseful not to over supplement calcium - this could offset the phosphorus:calcium ratio, and actully make the egg laying problem worse.

 

[Fred's Hens]

She gets calcium from a variety of sources, as well as the supplement your are providing. You did not state her age.

There may be something else "mis-firing" presently in her reproductive system. Hoping for the best.

 

[steveg144]

Thanks for the idea re: fish oil.

re: her age, haven't a clue.

She and Nigella wandered onto the property back in Dec and settled in under the deck, made themselves at home. Camilla popped an egg a day even during the worst of the cold weather. It's only in the past several days she's had this problem. I'm pretty sure it's because she isn't tucking into her greens (we feed them collards, which are supposed to be good for calcium), she used to chow down on greens before foraging, now she just blows past the greens and heads right out back to forage.

I'm hoping the small bowl of crushed oyster, combined with some scattered around their foraging grounds, will sort things out. I'll keep everyone posted. Thanks as always, this forums is a lifesaver! (for the hens ...

 

[steveg144]

Well, since we started her on crushed oyster (as well as crumbled bits of cheese, which she LOVES), our gal Camilla hasn't popped out one shell-less egg. On the down-side, she hasn't popped out ANY eggs. :-( This has been since the weekend. Mind you, we call her "Ol' Reliable" because every day at 3:15 she'd pop out an egg. She seems fine otherwise, foraging, running over to greet her humans, and she even does the Egg Song when the other hen lays her daily egg. But from her, egg-wise, nada. I guess we just have to wait it out and see.