New layer trouble...two soft shell eggs and now...? Please help!

[Eggcessive]

You are not bothering us with questions. If I am not online, someone else may answer. Yes, I would let her out to walk around with her flock. Do watch out for any excess pecking or bullying, or if they peck her comb. It helps to stay a part of the flock, so they don’t forget her. It sounds like she is doing well.

 

[chickengoggles]

You are not bothering us with questions. If I am not online, someone else may answer. Yes, I would let her out to walk around with her flock. Do watch out for any excess pecking or bullying, or if they peck her comb. It helps to stay a part of the flock, so they don’t forget her. It sounds like she is doing well.

Thank you!

 

[chickengoggles]

@Eggcessive @DobieLover @micstrachan @Lady Lionheart

Update and question, please. Baby seems to be doing well. She has finished her antibiotics and is down to once a day steroid. She's drinking and eating, but her crop at night doesn't feel as packed full as my other birds. It's a bit squishy - maybe she drinks more water than my other birds? Maybe the steroids make her drink more?

In any case, I recently bought a large bag of oyster shell/calcium from Manna Pro. I don't think anyone is eating it as well as the previous bag of just oyster shell from Dumor. I plan on buying a different bag this afternoon, but should I be giving her liquid calcium in order to make sure she is getting enough, especially since she's not eating a ton? I'm out of crushed eggshells, which is what I was putting in her scrambled eggs, but now she's back to regular feed, so I want to make sure we don't have another soft shelled egg when she does lay.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Eggcessive]

Do you have any Tums or human calcium tablets? You could up to half of one a day, and put it in the back of her throat or crush it into food. The Tums probably has too bad of flavor to add to food. The calcium tablets may be easiest. Many foods are high in calcium, such as sardines, canned salmon, kale, broccoli, plain yogurt, almonds and others. I would try to get her to take some probiotics or plain yogurt with cultures to help her crop and instestinal bacteria. Glad she is doing well.

 

[chickengoggles]

Do you have any Tums or human calcium tablets? You could up to half of one a day, and put it in the back of her throat or crush it into food. The Tums probably has too bad of flavor to add to food. The calcium tablets may be easiest. Many foods are high in calcium, such as sardines, canned salmon, kale, broccoli, plain yogurt, almonds and others. I would try to get her to take some probiotics or plain yogurt with cultures to help her crop and instestinal bacteria. Glad she is doing well.

I could NOT get her to take Tums in anything. Yogurt, mash, I can't remember what else I tried. I can get a liquid in her beak, though, and I see a few options made for humans that are liquid calcium and vitamin D. Also my feed store has liquid calcium. Any idea what dose I am going for? The tums I was crushing up were 500 mg. per tablet (again, not that she ate any) - so is 250 mg. a good dosage for chickens?

I have also kept water with electrolytes and probiotics available since this started. I could try yogurt again without the Tums if you think that is warranted.

 

[Eggcessive]

Half of a human Caltrate tablet is 300 mg, so I would aim for between 250 and 300 mg of calcium. If you can take a cooked or raw egg, shell and all, and put it in a food processor or blender, that will give a good dose of calcium and D. A whole egg shell contain about 1000mg of calcium carbonate, and the yolk has vitamin D3.

 

[chickengoggles]

@Eggcessive - You are truly a wealth of knowledge. Thanks once again.

 

[micstrachan]

Sorry I was not online today. It sounds like you are covered!
Also, my understanding is that calcium supplements, other than in layer feed or free choice oyster shell is not good to do long term.

 

[Lady Lionheart]

I had a new layer that was dropping soft shell eggs at night. I did give her a calcium pill but the thing that I think helped the most was I toasted their eggshells and put them on top of the oyster shell. Turns out that doing that led her to start eating the oyster shell. This pic is of her weirdest soft shell. Also the last one that I've seen. I never thought that pullets wouldn't instinctively know to eat the oyster shell. Have you seen yours eating oyster shell? Sorry if this was already answered earlier.

 

[chickengoggles]

Sorry I was not online today. It sounds like you are covered!
Also, my understanding is that calcium supplements, other than in layer feed or free choice oyster shell is not good to do long term.

Sorry I was not online today. It sounds like you are covered!
Also, my understanding is that calcium supplements, other than in layer feed or free choice oyster shell is not good to do long term.

Thank you!