My chicken is broken and lays weird eggs!

PeppersPeeps

Chirping
Jun 21, 2018
36
84
64
Massachusetts
First off, I’ve read everything online and have tried all the obvious stuff. It started about 3 weeks ago:

Egg bound!: or so I thought. She acted all weird and droopy and penguiny and wouldn’t eat. So we brought her into the porch ER cage, gave her nutridrench, soaked her in an epsom salt bath, violated her personal places and crossed our fingers. Over night she layed a shellless egg. Yay! But the next day she was down again, so we repeated everything. No improvement, so we added calcium citrate tablets. She was acting normal, so she went back to the coop and pooped out another shellless egg over night.

Soft-shelled eggs: so now I know she’s not egg bound and the shellless eggs are supper hard to pass. So I threw out all the old food (Nutrina Layer Pellets) in case it was stale and stopped all treats except for sprouts. And we kept up the supplemental calcium citrate nightly. Then she started (finally) laying again and the shells were super soft and were crushed in the nesting boxes.

Mutant eggs: after about 4-5 soft shelled eggs, she started laying mutant eggs. They’re huge and misshapen. We’ve had 2 in a row. (I hope the photos load).

Is this because of the extra calcium? We had weeks of weak eggs, and now we have Hulk Eggs. My other three ladies are all fine and eat the same diet. I’ve never seen misshapen eggs like this before.

TL;DR; my formerly egg-bound chicken lays huge misshapen eggs after weeks of soft shell eggs. And Edited to add the girls have oyster shells freely available in a small feeder

Thanks in advance if you’ve read this far!
 

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My two theories are:

1 How old is your hen? Older chickens may lay fewer quality eggs or in the case of your hen, really weird eggs. It may just be a thing with age. Our older chickens often laid weird shaped eggs too.

2 Perhaps she was lacking the calcium and that was why she had soft-shelled eggs, and then when she got the right amount her body had a hard time adjusting. I don't think the problem is extra calcium. Maybe after a few more eggs, she'll lay better.

For now, just see how her next eggs are, and see if there is any improvement.
 
My two theories are:

1 How old is your hen? Older chickens may lay fewer quality eggs or in the case of your hen, really weird eggs. It may just be a thing with age. Our older chickens often laid weird shaped eggs too.

2 Perhaps she was lacking the calcium and that was why she had soft-shelled eggs, and then when she got the right amount her body had a hard time adjusting. I don't think the problem is extra calcium. Maybe after a few more eggs, she'll lay better.

For now, just see how her next eggs are, and see if there is any improvement.

She’s about 12 months old. Still a baby! She’s the blonde Easter Egger in my avatar.
 
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