Jersey Giant egg problems

[breezy]

I think I have a real problem with my jersey giant. She was hatched 2/11/09. When she started laying about a month ago she was doing pretty well laying fairly regularly and nice normal kind of small eggs. Over the last 2 weeks she has begun laying erratically and has begun laying a lot of shell-less eggs. The ones that do have shells are either misshappen or miss colored. She sometimes lays 2 shell-less eggs in a day. I just picked one up that is shell less but feels like it has a very thin layer of shell on it. Its flexible but feels rough. All the shell-less eggs have been perfect inside.
What is happening with her and what can I do to help her get back to where she was when she started?
She eats layer pellets, wild bird seed, gets oyster shell and free ranges daily as well as all kinds of kitchen goodies. What am I not doing right? She is a sweet friendly bird and I am really worried about her. I dont want to lose her. Can anyone help me?
ps i did treat her for lice a week ago with permethrin

 

[PacsMan]

How much oyster shell is she eating?

Take the eggs (with hard shells), hard boil them, crush them up so they don't look like eggs, and feed them back to her. That should boost her calcium.

Marty

 

[cmom]

Also you can give her some yogurt either plain or mix some of her feed in it and have a dish of oyster shells available for her. I keep oyster shells in a dish near my birds feed.

 

[breezy]

I have been crushing egg shells and feeding it back to the girls as well as yogurt and cottage cheese and scrambled eggs. I mix the oyster shell into their feed. I have 4 birds total 3 buffs and the jersey and she is the only one laying shell -less/thin shelled eggs.
Is there a calcium supplement for birds that I can add to the water? Is there a medical condition that would cause this or is it purely nutritional?

 

[CMV]

Quote:
Stress can also cause shell-less eggs. I have a hen who is molting at the moment and she just laid a shell-less egg. The only other time I had one was when one of my hens was attacked by a hawk and terribly wounded. The next morning she laid a shell-less egg. It's usually nutritional, but can have other causes as well. There are conditions that will cause egg laying issues, but rule out nutritional and stress-related causes first because the other conditions are usually not good news for your hen.
Good luck.

 

[breezy]

I think I have resolved the shell-less egg laying problem but it was a weird solution. I was doing everything your supposed to in the way of feeding ect but was still having the problem. I cant force her to eat oyster shell or yogurt (which all of my chickens hate) and cottage cheese daily was getting expensive so I found a recipe for homemade cheese made with powdered milk. I have a ton of powdered milk I need to use up so I made some cheese for the chickens. She ate it like crazy as did the others.
It literally takes me about 10 minutes to make cheese for them and its super cheap. I am using powdered milk that has passed its expiration date. My dogs love it too.
Here is the recipe for anyone who wants to give it a shot

2 cups water
1 1/2 cups powdered milk
3 tablespoons vinegar
Bring water to a boil. Add milk.Sprinkle vinegar around edges of pan and stir gently just till milk curdles ( less than a minute) Take pan off heat let set 1 minute. Pour into a cheese cloth lined colander( I save the whey for my dogs) rinse with hot water then with cold.Drain till the dripping stops

I make this at night and let it drip till morning then take it out and feed it to the dogs and chickens. The shell-less eggs have stopped and everybody looks and acts healthy.
hope this helps someone else with fussy chickens

 

[SallyF]

What a helpful recipe! Thanks for posting it; I'm going to try it just for a treat for the dog and chickens.

 

[breezy]

I hope it works for you. If you want to use the cheese for yourself salt it to taste then use it like dry curd cottage cheese. I make lasagne with it

 

[somadlyinlove]

I tried this. Its really easy and my chickens loved it too! I didn't have any cheese cloth so I just lined the colander with a washcloth.

 

[Mak]

A men's cloth handkerchief works like a charm for straining stuff like this. We have 8 or 10 that we keep in the kitchen just for that purpose- straining cheese, stock, broth, anything. Cheap and reusable. Haven't bought cheesecloth in ages.