I have a Red laying rubbery eggs

[vwgurl2]

So I have a Rhode Island Red who has some strange laying issues. For instance, tonight (8:00 pm) I went out to check on the chickens, and there was an egg on the straw under the perch (4' up) where it appears my red is dropping her eggs from. Next to it there was the remains of another one of the Red's eggs but this one is different.

My Red lays an egg which the shell is very rubbery, ripped, and almost every time the yolk in all over the straw. The normal eggs she lays are HUGE!!!! They don't even fit into a X-Large egg carton properly. So tonight she laid a normal and rubber egg within the last 2 hours. She is the only one that lays besides another hen which lays smaller eggs, so they are definitely from the Red.

Any ideas as to why this is happening???

This all started after a fox chased her right in front of me in the middle of the day. She went form laying eggs everyday to nothing for 6 months. Then we started getting these rubber type shells (more love a ripped surgical glove), plus regular EXTRA EXTRA LARGE eggs.

Let me know what you think!!!!!

 

[Debs55]

Maybe not enough calcium? do you feed layer feed or let the hens have access to oyster shell? It could also just be stress from the fox incident but I don't think that would last so long unless she was injured

 

[leonphelps]

probably stress. give it a week or so to cool down.

make sure to remove the predator.

 

[donrae]

Some higher production birds just have glitchy reproductive systems. I'm not sure what you can do other than provide good food, supplement calcium and eleminate any stress you might have. I don't think there's any way to re-set a hen's hormones, unless you had a way to create artificial darkness to make her think it's winter. Cut her light back for several weeks, if that stops her laying bring the time back up to see if she starts laying again, hopefully normally this time.

Or, just let it go and know she's at risk for internal reproductive issues. Really, not sure how much can be done here.

 

[BeulahBreezes]

I have a CuckooMarans hen who has a similair issue.........only rubbery eggs or no eggs for months. (10 months old) Just this week she started laying beautiful eggs. So I guess the time off was good for her. She was extremely stressed back in late August by a nasty thunderstorm and she was also stressed by another hen.....the alpha hen picked on her all the time. (We lost our alpha hen to a nasty hawk last week and now strangely enough, the CM has starting laying again!) ~Beulah