Laying while molting?

[Barredrocker99]

Hey all! With the colder weather approaching, a couple of my girls are going through some pretty gnarly molting. One of my Easter eggers hasn’t been laying for the last couple weeks(I know this because she is the only one out of 16 chickens who lays very light brown eggs) due to her molt. Two nights ago when I was doing my head count, I noticed egg white and a yolk on the floor of the coop. There was no eggshell, no soft shell, just the white and the yolk. Last night when I was checking on them, I noticed another broken egg in the same spot, this time with a soft shell. Still no hard shell though. This is right below where my EE perches, and I was wondering if this could be due to her molt, or if something worse is happening. She has always laid in a nesting box, never just out in the run like that. She is no longer a pullet, but some of the girls she roosts with are. Any ideas?

 

[azygous]

Egg anomalies are common preceding and at the start of molt. I recently had a Legbar/EE mix go through several such egg disasters at the start of her molt. They were coming out with thin shells and that could present a problem if one collapsed inside her. So I gave her a calcium citrate tablet for several days while she was still laying. That assured that she was going to lay decent eggs up until the time molt curtailed her laying.

As long as no actual eggs are being produced, and as long as none of these girls behave in a manner that might indicate they are having laying difficulties, I would advise to just keeping an eye on things for now. Once molt gets underway, the eggs or whatever passes for eggs, will soon stop.