Need help with soft shell eggs!

[Retireejd]

I have six girls which started laying approximately three months ago. I have one, a Road Island Red, who has always had trouble with her eggs. A small few has been normal, but most eggs are soft shelled and not fully red colored. Most eggs are already broken when I collect them(which is two to three times a day ). I have oyster shells available, but have never seen her eating them. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

 

[Hen Pen Jem]

First of all welcome! Good to have you here!

Egg laying is a very delicate process for these hens. You need at least one nest box for every four hens, privacy, and good nutrition (Proper Layer Feed).

When they lay soft shelled eggs, it is usually caused by stress. It can also be illness, infection in oviduct, infectious bronchitis etc. Also, a diet that is low in calcium.

What to do?

1. Is she pacing back and forth in the pen, making loud vocalizations? Maybe another hen is throwing her out of the nest box. If so, then stress is the possible cause. How many nest boxes do you have? Maybe you need another, toss in a couple of fake eggs to encourage the hens to spread out. Adding curtains provides privacy and a feeling of safety for the hen too. Their cloaca can be visible when laying and sometimes another hen will peck at it! That would freak me out too!

2. If she doesn't like the oyster shell, it could be the texture. You can also save egg shells, rinse them, then bake them on a cookie sheet, in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or till they just start to brown. That will kill any bacteria on the shells. Grind them up or crush in a bag. I like to give them a whirl in the coffee grinder. Put some out in the run in a dish or cage cup.

3. Examine her to make sure she isn't stressed from mites/lice. Or, there could be some illness brewing. Check the poop, is it firm or diarrhea? Is she sneezing? Is she missing feathers? If you observe you hens you will be able to put a list of clues together. Then, you can figure what is causing illness.

The members here at BYC have tons of good knowledge too!

Don't worry, many times they have these issues at the start of laying and then they will magically work themselves out. Just keep and eye on her.

Hope this gives you something new to think about.

God Bless!

 

[Retireejd]

Thanks for the advice. I will check closer with her during the day and see if I can figure out what's going on with her. I have two nesting boxes and have not seen any of the others bothering her. I free range them during the day and have never seen any problems. I will check the feed store and see if I need to change what I'm feeding them. Again thanks for the info.

 

[Ridgerunner]

When I have a problem I try to determine if it is an individual chicken problem or a flock-wide problem. I see no reason to treat an entire flock if it’s only a single chicken problem. If the other hen’s eggs are normal this is not a flock-wide problem.

This is fairly normal when a pullet first starts to lay, laying an egg is a pretty complicated process. It can take a while for a pullet to work all the bugs out of her internal egg making factory. To me it’s surprising how many get that process correct right from the start. But if they are going to work the bugs out they normally do that within a couple of weeks. Three months is too long.

It’s also not that unusual for a hen to occasionally have an oops. Something just doesn’t go right with one egg. We are all entitled to an occasional oops. But when it is not occasional but happens regularly it’s not an oops, there is something wrong with that hen.

Most hens instinctively seem to know that they need extra calcium and will eat oyster shell or other calcium supplements if they need it. You can get a hen that is not wired correctly for that instinct, not just on eating sufficient calcium but on any other behaviors. It’s really rare but it can happen.

Some hen’s bodies don’t process the calcium they eat correctly. That’s most likely a defective shell gland though there could be other causes. The shell gland just doesn’t process the calcium and deposit it on the egg correctly.

Another possible defect of the shell gland is timing. An egg normally spends many hours in the shell gland where the shell is slowly deposited. Once the shell is deposited around the egg it takes about a half hour for the hen to apply the pigment to color it. For brown egg layers the color is added after the shell is finished. For whatever reason she lays the egg before it is ready. This is a common cause of an oops. If a hen is startled the egg may pop out early, before it is ready. I don’t get at all excited when I find one of these as long as it is rare. But since your hen is doing this regularly I think there is just something wrong with her that can’t be treated. Sorry, but I think you need to either resolve to put up with it or remove her.

You can try isolating her and spreading the powder from the oyster shell on her food to force her to eat more calcium and see if that helps. But I would not do that to the entire flock. Excess calcium can harm them, I don’t like to force them to eat more than they need.

 

[aart]

Welcome to BYC!

How many birds do you have?
If all the rest are laying fine, it's not their diet, so no need to change feed.
But knowing what all and how exactly you are feeding can help here.

Some birds just have issues, I have had a few birds that laid wonky eggs full time.
Something is not up to snuff in the way the uptake/process the nutrition they are getting. It can be impossible to tell what the issue is, and often nothing to 'cure' it.
Could be caused by a genetic malformation or maybe disease.

When I have a bird that is not up to snuff I isolate bird in a wire cage within the coop for a day or two....so you can closely monitor her intake of food and water, crop function(checking at night and in morning before providing more feed), and her poops. Examine the body closely for bugs(part feathers down to skin around vent especially), belly bloating, anything that is not 'normal'

I like to use a fold-able wire dog crate (24"L x 18"W x 21"H) with smaller mesh(1x2) on bottom of crate under tray.
Then you can put tray underneath crate to better observe droppings without it being stepped in.
If smaller mesh is carefully installed, tray can still be used inside crate.

 

[Retireejd]

When I have a problem I try to determine if it is an individual chicken problem or a flock-wide problem. I see no reason to treat an entire flock if it’s only a single chicken problem. If the other hen’s eggs are normal this is not a flock-wide problem.

This is fairly normal when a pullet first starts to lay, laying an egg is a pretty complicated process. It can take a while for a pullet to work all the bugs out of her internal egg making factory. To me it’s surprising how many get that process correct right from the start. But if they are going to work the bugs out they normally do that within a couple of weeks. Three months is too long.

It’s also not that unusual for a hen to occasionally have an oops. Something just doesn’t go right with one egg. We are all entitled to an occasional oops. But when it is not occasional but happens regularly it’s not an oops, there is something wrong with that hen.

Most hens instinctively seem to know that they need extra calcium and will eat oyster shell or other calcium supplements if they need it. You can get a hen that is not wired correctly for that instinct, not just on eating sufficient calcium but on any other behaviors. It’s really rare but it can happen.

Some hen’s bodies don’t process the calcium they eat correctly. That’s most likely a defective shell gland though there could be other causes. The shell gland just doesn’t process the calcium and deposit it on the egg correctly.

Another possible defect of the shell gland is timing. An egg normally spends many hours in the shell gland where the shell is slowly deposited. Once the shell is deposited around the egg it takes about a half hour for the hen to apply the pigment to color it. For brown egg layers the color is added after the shell is finished. For whatever reason she lays the egg before it is ready. This is a common cause of an oops. If a hen is startled the egg may pop out early, before it is ready. I don’t get at all excited when I find one of these as long as it is rare. But since your hen is doing this regularly I think there is just something wrong with her that can’t be treated. Sorry, but I think you need to either resolve to put up with it or remove her.

You can try isolating her and spreading the powder from the oyster shell on her food to force her to eat more calcium and see if that helps. But I would not do that to the entire flock. Excess calcium can harm them, I don’t like to force them to eat more than they need.

Thanks for the info.!

 

[Retireejd]

Thanks for the info.!

 

[Retireejd]

Welcome to BYC!

How many birds do you have?
If all the rest are laying fine, it's not their diet, so no need to change feed.
But knowing what all and how exactly you are feeding can help here.

Some birds just have issues, I have had a few birds that laid wonky eggs full time.
Something is not up to snuff in the way the uptake/process the nutrition they are getting. It can be impossible to tell what the issue is, and often nothing to 'cure' it.
Could be caused by a genetic malformation or maybe disease.

When I have a bird that is not up to snuff I isolate bird in a wire cage within the coop for a day or two....so you can closely monitor her intake of food and water, crop function(checking at night and in morning before providing more feed), and her poops. Examine the body closely for bugs(part feathers down to skin around vent especially), belly bloating, anything that is not 'normal'

I like to use a fold-able wire dog crate (24"L x 18"W x 21"H) with smaller mesh(1x2) on bottom of crate under tray.
Then you can put tray underneath crate to better observe droppings without it being stepped in.
If smaller mesh is carefully installed, tray can still be used inside crate.

 

[BYC910]

About all I could add is chickens are picky eaters . If they don't like what you're serving they won't eat it till they get really hungry . Even then they will pick through the feed for what they like best .If you isolate . offer different kinds of feed figure out the chicken likes most . Adjust supplements accordingly .Also oyster shells are ground to different sizes . Sift the oyster shells and mix the fine powder . into their feed .

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Exactly for how long or how many soft shelled eggs has this hen laid?

She sounds disturbingly like the product of a so called "chicken breeder"

ALL hen eggs or at least the limestone in hen eggs comes directly out of the hens' skeleton. Oyster shell is meant to replace minerals that came out of her bones. The Limestone in egg shells is WAY to fragile for a hens' digestive system to make use of this type of limestone. Feed eggshells if you must but keep a can of oyster shell in front of your hens at ALL times. A quick look at a hens' stomach and intestines will reveal that these organs are much to short to hold crushed eggshells long enough for the hen to extract any limestone that the eggshells contain.

Chicken breeders are casual chicken producers who mostly produce extremely inbred hens and roosters often to some mythical breed standard. These hens and roosters are in many cases so inbred that they have trouble reproducing their own kind, which a hen is attempting to do, often without success because of human ignorance about the needs and druthers of our poultry's reproduction systems.