Is it a weakness of RIRs to lay soft shelled eggs?

[KayP]

My RIR is the only one of mine with this problem and I saw other mentions of this problem connected w/ RIRs or NHReds. Anyone know how these birds can be helped?

 

[shelleyd2008]

You need to make sure they have a good layer feed, and probably some oyster shell to boot. When my dad was feeding his reds like this, their shells were super hard. He has switched their feed, and now it seems many of the eggs crack just from the birds laying them. He is going to switch them back to the other feed.

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
for now you need to bring up the calcium level in their diet, but if you don´t want to encaunter this latter on, you must stop breeding her, just keep her for laying duties...

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

I do not believe it to be a breed issue. It is a nutritional deficiency. Either the bird/birds are not getting sufficient calcium (more likely to be a flock issue), or they are unable to metabolize it (more likely to be an individual bird issue).

Give them free choice oyster shell and add apple cider vinegar to their water.

 

[KayP]

Which kind of layer feed worked best? In my area I have two choices- Dumor and Purena. I don't recall if my RIR did better on one than the other. Right now I have them on Grower and add hand fulls of the oyster shell in with it. I have a container of the oyster shells next to the feed and they didn't seem to be going for it, so I started throwing some in with the feed. The reason I put them on the grower is that I wanted to integrate my little ones, and didn't want them to get the calcium. I figured (and some people on here told me)the increased protein can't hurt the older ones and they can tell when they need to get more calcium. The other day some discarded eggshells fell and the big girls were all over them! They ate em in a blink of the eye! Maybe they don't like the oyster shells. I think my new plan will be to put the layer feed too high for the young bantams. In any case the RIR is the only one with the soft shell problem and I think she's had it regardless of the feed, and the other ones have never had the problem. So I'm wondering if she has a weakness in this area. She also layed some of her body out the other day, attached to a soft incomplete shell. I thought it was her oviduct but she layed a soft shelled egg tody so I guess that's not what I saw.

 

[nicalandia]

Quote:
in the good old days, mother nature cull those birds and kept the strongest ones....just to be safe don´t breed any chicks from her..

 

[KayP]

My poor birds are roo-less, being city-birds... so no breeding concerns:/