infectious bronchitis and thin shelled eggs

[my beautiful girls]

my 3.5 year old blue australorp has infectious bronchitis and has started laying thin shell, breakable eggs. I have been giving her calcium for 10 days straight. 400mg a day plus D3. the eggs have improved but are thin just on the fat end now. I do not want to overload her with calicum and cause other problems. so my question is how much is too much with infectious bronchitis virus causing the shell problem? thank you.

 

[Eggcessive]

Just wondering, do you have other birds with symptoms of sneezing every few minutes for several weeks? Was it diagnosed with testing or had you seen it before? Most of the time 7 days is long enough to give the calcium for harder shells, but I think that @azygous will give it for up to 2 weeks and then stop. I think that calcium may not help the egg problems that infectious bronchitis causes. IB virus can affect the oviduct and shell gland. My flock had IB years ago, and I dealt with a lot of egg shell problems, premature deaths as well as hens stopping laying eggs earlier than usual.

 

[my beautiful girls]

Just wondering, do you have other birds with symptoms of sneezing every few minutes for several weeks? Was it diagnosed with testing or had you seen it before? Most of the time 7 days is long enough to give the calcium for harder shells, but I think that @azygous will give it for up to 2 weeks and then stop. I think that calcium may not help the egg problems that infectious bronchitis causes. IB virus can affect the oviduct and shell gland. My flock had IB years ago, and I dealt with a lot of egg shell problems, premature deaths as well as hens stopping laying eggs earlier than usual.

@Eggcessive It was diagnosed via blood test. I will stop and see if they remain as is or get back to normal. Did you treat your eggshell problems ?

 

[Eggcessive]

No, I did not treat since this was 12 years ago. Back then, it was new to me.

 

[Perris]

It was diagnosed via blood test. I will stop and see if they remain as is or get back to normal. Did you treat your eggshell problems ?

You might find this useful, from the msdvet manual:

"In layers with infectious bronchitis, egg production can drop by up to 70%, and eggs are often misshapen, with thin, soft, wrinkled, rough, and/or pale shells. Eggs can also be smaller and have watery albumen. Egg production and egg quality can return to normal; however, recovery can take up to 8 weeks. In most outbreaks, the mortality rate is approximately 5%, but it can be as high as 60% when disease is complicated by concurrent bacterial infection or when nephropathogenic strains induce interstitial nephritis."

https://www.msdvetmanual.com/poultr...chitis-in-chickens#Clinical-Findings_v3344091

As it is viral, antibiotics won't have any impact. And as the kidneys can be involved, I wouldn't give extra calcium. It is one of those diseases that just have to run their course, and most birds will recover from it without treatment.